How do you guys go about practicing for a tournament? My father and I are thinking of joining a buddy trail system next year maybe in the Bass Nation for our local area to fish for a season to see what happens. 

We are planning on going fishing today so here is what I am thinking of doing. If we can get to the Lake by 5 after work and get the boat launched, we are gonna fill up the live well and fish hard until 9:30 or 10. We are gonna try to catch a 5 fish limit and cull out any smaller fish if we catch more than 5. We are gonna weigh each fish and add up our total weight. 

I'm gonna check out a few of the local tournament websites and look at past Buddy team results and see how we fair. Now, I know it is apples to oranges because it's a different day, different water, different conditions, but I figure it's at least a start to answer some of the curiosity. 

Anyone else practice like this? 

I start out at home...  using the computer to look at fishing reports around tournament time, if you can see if they are running water *if acceptable*  also looking at a good contour map of the lake you are fishing, marking a few spots that you plan to hit for whatever time of year it is. I aslo use google earth it sometimes offers a little bit of info that lake maps don't.   local/buddy tournaments should be a lot about having fun not just killing every tourney.kinda like you said, apples to oranges.  just bc you catch 12 lbs total weight one day doesn't mean you wont hit 25 lbs another so it would be tuff for me to go by that idea.  join the tourney for fun and experience, crazy how much you can learn talking to some of the people!  if ya end up winning then hey even better!   best of luck