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Not too new to the game, but still learning a lot. What is the best way to catch trophy bass in Texas? The best spot, lure, bait and time are what I am looking for. If anyone has any suggestions

I recently discovered something that has improved my numbers drastically when fishing with minnows. It only works with Small Minnows, Shiners, and Large Minnows. Some may already know this trick. If not, I hope it helps. I was noticing that the minnows swim around slowly and normally when there's not a fish near them, but just before they got bitten they'd always speed up their swimming. So I did a little research on youtube and found a video showing underwater footage of someone using minnows while fishing and was describing a game mechanic added in a patch called "Predatory Strikes". Essentially what this is, is when a fish spawns nearby your minnow, the minnows starts to swim erratically, then will stop. When it stops is when the fish will strike 1-3 seconds later. I started out by fishing the normal hotspots and it worked perfectly. It makes it easier to know when the fish will bite. Well, even better...you can use the minnow as a fish finder basically. When you're having trouble getting bites, instead of just tossing out your minnow into a hotspot and waiting for a bite, cast out and wait about 20-30 seconds and if the minnow doesn't start swimming around like crazy, just reel in your line 5-10 feet. Then wait for it to start swimming around all crazy again, if not, reel in a bit more. Once it starts swimming around all crazy, just wait and it'll abruptly pause in one spot and 1-3 seconds later, get ready to set the hook. This helps you proactively find the fish instead of waiting for them. I catch wayyyy more now by using the minnow as a lure instead of bait. Here's the video to give you a bit better of an idea what the Predatory Strikes mechanic looks like.

Just a quick question, when we catch a fish and gain exp (experience points) do we need to keep the fish to get the exp or do we get it regardless?