Not the "Good Ole Days"

I believe we are on a downhill slide for striper fishing here in RI. Oh, there are still some stripers and blues around from shore but their numbers are way down compared to a few years back. I have proof of this as evidenced by my logs that I have been keeping over the past 30 years.
Let's look back at the year 2000, exactly ten years ago. In the month of July, 2000, I landed 254 stripers from shore with the upper Bay fishing real hot. There were some evenings that the kids and I would land 40-50 schoolies from places like the East Providence Bike Path, Sabin's Point and Bold Pt. During that month you could catch them in the morning, daytime and evening. Along the oceanfront I was catching decent sized ones with many fish in the 20 lb. range. In addition, there were good numbers of blues as well as hickory shad. In July, 2000, I landed 14 blues and 45 shad.
Fast forward to 2010. I'm fishing the same spots, same number of outings and same hours. I will be lucky to catch 50 stripers and 5 blues this month. Where I caught hundreds of schoolies in the upper Bay, I'll be lucky to nab ten fish in the entire month. A big one these days seems to be 28 inches, not 20 lbs. Forget hickory shad; they are not around.
So, that's summer shore fishing, 2010. Not exactly the good ole days of striper fishing. And, not exactly the numbers many reports are giving you. If you are looking for the action to really pick up, I think you will have to wait for October. Based on last year, the real hot striper action lasted 4 weeks in the fall from mid October to mid November. I suspect it will happen that way again this year.