Bass bumping and following swimbaits.

[ptomacbass]

Today, I was throwing a six inch Hudd and had about 15 follows and bumps.  I landed none of these fish except I did have a little guy on for a couple seconds.  One of the followers was about five pounds.  Do fish normally bounce off of and follow soft plastic swimbaits?

[Bassin_Fin@tic]

Good question. I have been experiencing the same type of thing since I started using them,and probably more times than I am aware of too.

[VolFan]

Two schools of thought on this that should work:

1. Speed it up or change directions to make the bass think it's getting away.

2. Drop it right in the bass's face/slow it to a crawl.

Either will work sometimes, sometimes neither will work.  But sometimes they both do.  

[Bantam1]

Welcome to swimbait fishing   It can be the most frustrating thing to fish and the most rewarding.

[ChiCityBasser]

I haven't experienced this but on one of the BPS Bass Pros shows Jason Quinn was talking about something like this with the bass tending to bump or push the swimbaits. I think he suggested you either speed it up or change directions as well.

[Maxximus Redneckus]

Seems  them doing this they are lookin for a freind    Time to change lures byyyyyyy golly at least for that paticular time,i know when i get strikes and no hook ups with spinnerbaits i switch lures then i hook up. means they aint aggressive

[flechero]

I was throwing a six inch Hudd and had about 15 follows and bumps

That means you were almost perfect...  something was just a tad off or they (some of them) would have bitten.  Maybe you were a little too fast or slow, perhaps you just needed to kill it at some point in the retrieve, etc.

[Branuss04]

I was throwing a six inch Hudd and had about 15 follows and bumps

That means you were almost perfect... something was just a tad off or they (some of them) would have bitten. Maybe you were a little too fast or slow, perhaps you just needed to kill it at some point in the retrieve, etc.

BINGO!!!

Change up the speeds.  Burn it for 30 ft and kill it.  Deadstick it on the bottom.  You need to change things up a bit.  But even changing things might not get you those 15 that just bumped it, but it might have encouraged a few to bite.  That's just how swimbaiting goes.

[ptomacbass]

I tried letting it fall when they followed and did not get bit.  I also tried speeding up some and got more follows.  There were bluebird skies though and it went from dead calm to 30-40 miles per hour gusts while I was fishing.

[senko_77]

Even if you are having trouble getting those fish to commit, it's atleast giving away there general location.  Try going back through that area and throwing a wacky rigged worm or fast falling jig to trigger a reaction strike.  I would rather see a 5lber and have the confidence it was there than to never know it was there at all.