If you’re using a suspending jerkbait, which is a great lure this time of year, you’ll notice that a lot of bass will just follow your bait without hitting it. Sometimes I’ll get 30 follows to every five bass I catch.

Some guys will slow down their retrieve, as if they want to give the fish more time to think about it, but I believe it’s better to work a jerkbait fast and erratically. The bass don’t really want to hit it anyway, so what I’m trying to do is get a reaction bite. It’s like when you drag a ball of string across the floor in front of a cat. If you just barely move it, the cat isn’t going to be as interested in it as it is when you really burn it across the floor. Then it pounces; it’s the same with bass.

Also, to make sure I can follow through on some of those halfhearted strikes, I’ll do a couple of things. First, I tie on a Lucky Craft Slender Pointer 112, which has three sets of treble hooks. That increases the hookup odds in my favor. Then, I’ll replace the hooks with Owner ST-36 No. 4 trebles, which are a bit bigger and with a wider gap. They hook better and hold better without affecting the action too much. Finally, I use 10-pound-test Sunline fluorocarbon, which lets the jerkbait achieve its maximum depth of about 4 or 5 feet deep.

If you see fish swiping at your jerkbait, but not taking it, try speeding up, not slowing down.

— National Guard pro Brent Ehrler of Redlands, Calif.