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Tyler Gavlick spent his childhood fishing for panfish and bass in a pond near his Hanover Township home.
Next month, Gavlick will be in Tennessee fishing for a championship.
The Hanover Area senior qualified for the B.A.S.S. High School National Championship where he’ll compete against nearly 400 high school anglers from across the country competing for scholarships, money and other prizes.
For Gavlick, who will turn 18 in October, the championship is a chance to make a dream come true.
“I’m nervous and excited,” he said. “I’ll be competing against kids from all over the nation, and winning this championship is the biggest accomplishment at the high school level.”
Gavlick, who hopes to become a pro bass angler, has already accomplished quite a bit in his angling career.
Because Hanover Area doesn’t have a bass fishing team, Gavlick competes with the Susquehanna Valley High School Fishing Team in Lewisburg. The team is a conglomeration of students from schools throughout the region who compete against each other and other teams across the state.
Last September, Gavlick, who also competes in the B.A.S.S. High School Series and the FLW High School Series, and his teammate Andrew Henry, a junior at Lewisburg High School, fished in the state championship at Conneaut Lake in Crawford County. Gavlick and Henry competed against approximately 70 other high school anglers, and the morning started off well as Gavlick landed a keeper after a few casts.
But the bite slowed, and Gavlick and Henry were trying their luck around docks when they noticed an elderly angler trying to pull his boat into his dock.
“It was an old dock, about half in the water, and he was having some trouble,” Gavlick said. “We pulled up and helped him, and he told us ‘Good things come to people that help each other.’ At the next dock, I caught the biggest bass of the day.”
Gavlick’s bass weighed more than 3 pounds and propelled he and Henry to a second-place finish in the state championship. It also secured them an invite to the national championship this year.
The championship will be held on Kentucky Lake in Paris, Tennessee, a 160,309-acre impoundment full of weed beds and ledges in deep water that hold both largemouth and smallmouth bass. The championship will run from Aug 4-6 with the field cut to the top 12 teams on Aug. 6.
Gavlick knows the pressure that comes with tournament fishing, and he’s gotten some good advice over the years from someone with plenty of experience on the competition front – former Warrior Run resident and pro angler Dave Wolak.
Gavlick’s uncle, Chris Hall, was Wolak’s fishing partner on the local tournament scene years ago and he never hesitated to seek advice.
“I talked to (Wolak) every second I could, and he always gave me time and showed me new things,” Gavlick said. “He had a lot of determination and patience, and that’s one thing I learned from him.”
Patience is one of the aspects that makes Gavlick a successful angler, according to Tom Prowant, advisor of the Susquehanna Valley High School Fishing Team. As a member of the team for four years, Prowant has watched Gavlick grow as an angler and he isn’t surprised to see the young angler reach the national stage.
“The national championship is the biggest achievement he can get at the high school level. It’s a great honor,” Prowant said. “He’s very patient and he can fish slow, plus he has a lot of confidence in what he’s doing.
“Tyler is an all-around good kid.”
In fact, Gavlick and his teammate, Henry, are the third team from Prowant’s team to make the national championship. They’ll be using a boat captained by Nick Osman, who won the inaugural high school championship in 2014.
Prowant said Osman and another of his angler’s have gone on to earn college scholarships through competitive bass fishing, and Gavlick knows what’s on the line in the national championship.
“I want to turn pro, and this gets my name out there in the angling world and to colleges also,” Gavlick said.
Despite the pressures of tournament fishing and everything at stake in the national championship, Gavlick hasn’t lost his love of fishing just for fun when time allows.
“With school, being a volunteer with the Hanover Township Fire Department and taking EMT courses three days a week, time is my biggest challenge right now,” Gavlick said. “Even though I want to be a pro, I still find time at the end of the day to fish with my friend on the pond next door.
“Even when I’m just fishing for fun, I’m still learning something new every time and becoming a better angler.”
