DVC, My path is not all that different from the one that you have taken. I persued northern pike rather than bass.
Good luck, trout fishing. Itis a totally different breed of fishing. Plan on learning and relearning a whole bunch of stuff. If you think your good now, after winning two tourneys and all, get ready to be humbled. It's way harder than it looks and man is it fun. Good luck.

"Nice thing about rain is you don't have to shovel it. " C.R.Thorp