Dead as a Doornail....Bait, Stripers Disappear; Albies Nowhere to be Found.

We're on a downhill slide once again.  Since Thursday, the fishing along the oceanfront has slowly fizzled.  Today I went down and checked out places that had been producing earlier in the week.  I found no bait, no birds diving, no fish and no fishermen. I fished a lot of white water and rocky drop-offs today but could not even find a schoolie or a bluefish.  It was dead as a doornail.  Just when it looked like fall fishing was gaining some steam earlier in the week, it has suddenly come to a halt. With bad weather forecast tonight it looks like tomorrow could be ugly.
Note also that there are no albies around. If they are not here by now, don't expect a big run of them.  I'm hoping there will be a short run in the next week or so, but I'm not sure that will happen without a big shot of bait.  I can tell you that if you look back over the last twenty or thirty years, there were years in which there no albies.  They are never a sure bet. Many inexperienced fishermen look back over the last couple of years, great albie years, and think it will get better and better every year.  Not so.