Before he was able to make the first cast in one of Wisconsin’s biggest one-man bass events, the gig was already up for former Angler of the Year Adam Eisele. With the Wisco Crown Bass Championship set to kickoff on Saturday morning, tournament officials came across an extremely suspicious livewell the night before, setting off a firestorm for Eisele who never made it to launch.
According to reports, fellow competitor Dave Van Ert was staying at the same house, noticed Eisele’s boat lights still on, walked over to shut them off, and noticed that his livewell was pre-stocked with 14 nice-sized bass. After making the grim discovery, his first call was to Wisco Bass co-owner Kyle Carpenter, leading to an official request to search the boat. Eisele agreed and later told them he intended to use the fish in the tournament but that he obviously “didn’t have a good plan.”
“His actions violated two of our rules, one being anglers can’t possess fish during the pre-tournament practice fishing day and the other is the code of conduct form all anglers involved in our contests are required to sign,” Carpenter told Outdoor Life. “We also called DNR conservation wardens about the incident and they’re investigating it for natural resources violations.”
Adam Eisele | Instagram
Outside of now being banned from all Wisco Bass events moving forward, the Wisconsin DNR is having a look at a lot more than just tournament rules. Daily bag on those waters is five bass and possession is generally double, meaning fourteen fish in a livewell the night before a contest is a problem all on its own. Wardens are also checking whether the livewell was drained when the boat left the water, the invasive-species rule that usually gets treated as paperwork until it isn’t.
Eisele is not a nobody on this trail. Despite being Wisco Bass Angler of the Year five times, Carpenter said the organization had been wary of him for four or five years and once put a marshal in his boat. A records check turned up a November 2024 no-contest plea in Vernon County for taking or attempting to take game over the daily bag limit, leading many to believe this was far from his first rodeo.
At this point, wardens, not the tournament, will decide whether this becomes a state case. Most fishing citations under state law are forfeitures up to $1,000 a count. A 2024 no-contest overbag plea puts him inside the five-year repeater window, which can add fine and, on paper, jail time — though cases like this more often end in tickets and a possible license hit than a cell. He never weighed a fish, so this is not a finished theft of the $11,000 check. The circuit already banned him so now it’s up to the DNR to decide whether 14 bass and a prior simply get written up or an example gets made of him.
