So, I fished for about 5 or 6 hours today. I caught one stinking fish. On a rattle trap. I threw a toad for a bit and several different buzzbaits. On particular buzzbait, I must've gotten a dozen short strikes throughout the day. It didn't seem to matter how fast I retrieved it, they weren't actually biting it. I run trailer hooks too. I even saw a fish strike it, I slowed the bait to nearly still, and then started retrieval again, and I saw the fish dart towards the bait again to strike and then he saw me and pulled away.

What should I have been doing? What should I have changed? I've never fished a day in my life like this. They were just "pushing" my bait.

Were you fishing around heavy cover or was it windy? Those conditions make it more difficult for the fish to see the bait and get an accurate strike on it. If you're not around heavy cover you can try putting your trailer hook on so it's facing down or even run a treble on the back to help with hook ups.

It seemed like most of the time they were within a few feet of a tree trunk but not heavy cover. Kvd says that it sometimes means you need to speed up cause they're getting too good a look at the bait. I never really burned it in fast fast, but fairly fast and slow or medium was all the same. Short strike.

Depending where your from, in south Florida we have a lot of cichlids that act very alike to bass and will strike at buzzbaits and spinnerbaits and there mouths are typically a bit too small. Every once in a while you'll hook into one and it will be a dinner plate sized cichlid.

I had a similar problem over the weekend.  I changed rods from a fast action tip to my medium action crankin rod and caught 7 of 8 strikes.