I chase trout a lot, and follows are very common, even for big fish. They know they have the advantage over what they think is wounded prey (your jerkbait), and can eyeball it before committing. Throw an intermittent hard twitch in every five or six cranks, followed by a pause. The twitch usually causes a reactionary strike, and the pause allows for fish that missed to catch the bait.
As for missed or short strikes, trout are suction, or more specifically, vortex feeders. They create a directional vortex to grab prey, and they are astonishingly accurate. This "suction" can be negated by your line's tension. A good example of this is when flyfishermen see a trout "eat" their fly, yet either the line reveals no take or they "miss" on the strike (hook set). The drag, or microdrag, on the flyline, leader, etc was sufficient to interfere with a trout's feeding mechanism, yet not enough to be perceptible to the angler. Obviously, a 24" brown trying to eat a 5" shad will not rely on the vortex-action alone to capture its' prey, but if the trout detects odd resistance to a normally successful feeding behavior, it may not fully committ to taking the bait/lure/fly.
There isn't a whole lot you can do to prevent this in a flowing tailrace setting with jerkbaits being the lure used, so sharpen your hooks, use sensitive line/rod combo, and try to cause an aggressive reactionary strike from following neutral fish. The aggressive fish take care of themselves, as you saw for yourself.
Chris
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