Whether followers bite or not seems to have a lot to do with how smart / conditioned the fish are. Over the years I've noticed that at certain lakes, followers simply never bite, ever. At other lakes (almost always at lakes where the fish are 'stupid' to swimbaits) you will get followers that actually commit to the bait. Basically, I wouldn't feel discouraged if you are getting followers that don't bite, it's quite normal.

For me, when I do start getting followed a lot, that's my queue to make longer casts and position the boat way out of the strike zone. I may try ripping the bait or killing the bait to get a fish to eat it but for me, varying the retrieve to get a strike almost never works.

At most of the lakes I fish in Nor-Cal, the bass will not follow the bait out in to deep, open water because that isn't the zone where they want to eat. I also think that generally lower water temps in Nor-Cal affect how willing the bass are to chase trout. In So-Cal, when I've fished at lakes like Casitas and San Vicente, the fish will follow in to very deep water way off shore. I don't know why that is exactly, but I think they are just willing to expend more energy because they generally metabolize faster down south.

Anyway, think about it logically, a bass doesn't want to try to catch a fish in open water, they want to pin it up against something. A dumb analogy would be if you were trying to catch chickens in a pen 100 yards wide. Would you chase the chickens out in the middle and try to grab them? No... you'd chase them up in to the corner and grab them. Bass that do follow a bait out in to open water may simply be hoping that the 'fish' they are chasing decides to change direction and go somewhere more convenient to be eaten :) They may also be following just out of instinct or curiosity. It's hard to say.

In any case, I try to avoid fishing in ways that will cause me to get a lot of followers. That almost always means longer casts, keeping the boat further from the prime areas, or positioning the boat close to shore to where the fish will be forced to commit at the last second or run in to the shore. The more you fish that way, the more you will just fish that way to begin with, and the less followers you will get. I prefer to get as few followers as possible.