Here is my suggestion for what its worth.
Yes if you join on now you will learn alot if you join a club with guys willing to teach. Sometimes this is hard to find. Also if you can fish with someone who is alot better then you. This is where you can pick up a great deal of knowledge.
1. My recommendation is during this winter read as many of the articles on this website as you can.
2. Pay perticular attention to the ones on locations and seasons. This is the key in bass fishing. Learning how bass to relate structure and time of year locations. Remember 90% of the bass are in 10% of the water( I believe this old saying)
3. Read up on all of the lure presentation articles. You might not like all the techniques but it is handy to
know them and how to execute them.
4. Get off the bank fish deeper structure when big fish are not cruising or bedding.
5. Water time! (see #1) Print off some of these articles and go out and practice them until you feel comfortable in fishing that perticular technique.
Once you learn the keys in locating fish during a perticular part of the year. You can locate fish on almost any lake with the same conditions. Fish have patterns that coordinate with the time of the year. Learn these patterns. You will need to know how to fish clear water, stained, and muddy water effectively.
Also you will need to learn how to fish the whole water column effectively in all times of the year and conditions.
You can read all the articles you want but you will need to know how to put these articles and posts to good use. Someone in TX may have a suggestion in march of throwing a shallow crank but if you live in IL where the water is still 40 deg and he is fishing 60 deg water, it wont help you until your water temp reaches a similiar water temp. But once that water temp hits approx the same, give his technique a shot.
Some lures I would strongly suggest to be able to fish with highly effective results
Hard jerkbaits
Tubes
Jigs
spinnerbaits
cranks (lipped or not lipped)
soft plastics