Frustrating Night

[fishbones]

After getting skunked Sat. morning and Tuesday night, I decided to try again last night. I fished a stretch of shoreline that I'm pretty familiar with and that's usually good this time of year. Caught a small keeper on my 3rd cast, so I was feeling pretty good about my decision to go. Then I got nothing for the next hour and a half while walking the shoreline and casting. I worked my way back to my starting point and saw a ton of bait there. As I started casting, I noticed the water was blowing up with fish way out in front of me. Some fish were clearly attacking bait, while some seemed to be just swimming near the surface with their fins exposed. I started casting to them and as my plug would hit the water, a fish would be startled and make a big splash, like I disturbed it. I tried just about everything in my plug bag for the next half hour and didn't hook up. I had 2 follows but no strikes out of countless casts.

In the past, I've seen fish swimming around lazily and finning but not interested in lures because they weren't feeding. These fish were definitely feeding, but not liking anything I had to offer. While it was pretty cool to see all the activity, it was frustrating that I couldn't get them to hit my lures.

The only explanation I could come up with is that because the water was so clear and flat calm, they got too good a look at what I was throwing. Anyone else experienced this and have other thoughts as to why they weren't hitting lures?