Me and my best friend have strayed away from our roots of catfishing and became more interested in bass fishing over the last year. He recently just bought a bass boat and I plan on buying on in the next year. Over the last few weeks we have been talking about joining up with a small local tournament schedule.

It looks like this year when all teams would show up they had 11, 2 man teams. It's not a big money thing just something to do for fun with about 8 tournaments stretching from March-October.

What type of things do we need to know before getting into this. We have only fished a handful of lakes that they were on this year, so getting to know new water is going to be one obstacle.

[movedhere] General Bass Fishing Forum [move by] five.bass.limit.

great way to meet other bass fishermen and share information.

just go out and do your best and count the entry fees as an investment in the future.

be polite and treat the others with respect and how you would want to be treated, on and off the water.

try to prefish with other guys so you can learn the waters and baits, etc.

just be yourself and you will learn a lot.  

well get to know the other members of your club and try to find topo maps for the lake

as for equipment dont go over board with every lure in every color out there but do have

a carolina rig(for those shell beds)

a spinnerbait/crankbait/ect

a flippin stick/texas rig stick

a weightless rig

some soft plastics worms/brush hogs thing like that maybe a few cranckbaits a few ratletraps some spinnerbaits and a few jigs and you should be set

Fish a lot

Every other weekend would be an absolute minimum

personally I would say every other weekend wouldn't possibly give you enough time to really get the feel and bait selection knowlege to really improve. I would say a bare minimum is every weekend, several times a weekend, but would say if you really want ot improve, find local water near your home and make it a nightly ritual. Just my 2 cents.