I got out Sunday for a few hours of fishing alone, which never happens as I usually have 2 kids in tow.  Caught some dinks but ended up with 2 smallmouths that were decent, a 2.5 and a 2.7.  All fish were caught on a green pumpkin tube in 8-17 feet of water.  Not my best day but it sure was fun to feel the bend of the rod again.

Thanks for the responses guys, I appreciate it.  I'll give some of these ideas a go when I run into this next time to see if I can get them to hit.

I'd have shot for a reaction bite by screaming a crankbait through the area - one that had a similar shape and color to the one they followed.  This doesn't give them the time to think about it, and demands them to commit or stay put.  But the fact that they were somewhat interested in the jerkbait, makes me think that giving them too much time to scrutinize the bait worked against you.  Just a thought.

I suppose you could have tried throwing a Fluke or Sluggo type bait.  I might have also tried throwing a Sebile "Swimmin Minnow" in the slow sinking series.

Smitty

AKA Dune Hopper

Based on my earlier fishing of Clear Lake this year I know the small mouth spawn is over.  I would have fished deeper with a dropshot and football head jig w/hula grub.

Thanks Russ.  In my swapping of jerk baits, they were an assortment of Husky Jerks and Team Diawa jerk baits, I did go to ones that ran deeper but they were also larger baits, maybe if I'd have had the same size that went deeper...

I also tried killing it, forcing myself to count so I didn't move it again for 20 seconds or so but they still just followed.

Part of the elusive sport called fishing I suppose.....

Broke,

Well not knowing what type of jerk bait you were using I would have done either of these:

Used a deeper diving suspending jerk bait

or

Just Killed the bait on the retrieve - meaning jerk,jerk,jerk, then stop it for at least 15-30 seconds

Most of the time I find smallies that follow a jerk bait will just kill it when its stopped and just sitting there suspended in front of them.

Russ

I actually had some time yesterday to get out to Clear Lake and do some fishing but the results were less than stellar.  I ended up with 3 smallmouth for the day but none were of any size, the largest was 12 inches, maybe.  I started out using a jerkbait and I got some followers but they wouldn't hit, so I started changing size and colors of jerkbaits, none of those changes transformed the followers into hits, they were still following it.  I turned around and went back through the same areas with a 3 inch curly tail grub, and they were still following but not biting.  I ended the day with a texas rigged tube and never had a hit.  The 3 fish I did catch were small as I said, 2 on the jerk bait and 1 on the grub.

My question to all of you is, what would you have done different here to get those followers to actually bite?  I'm kinda stumped at the moment and would like your input.