Not Much Doing

I went down to the oceanfront yesterday evening and night.  I fished a good number of locations and put in several hours of casting.  The result....one lone schoolie.
I had all the right conditions.  The first spot I fished had everything just right.  The northeast wind was driving in a wind driven surf that was white, rough and fairly clean.  It was the type of conditions that in the past would have yielded multiple stripers.  Not this year.  I plugged all around this place until dark and did not get a hit.
The next place I hit was calmer, more protected water.  It was another high percentage spot for this time of year.  I did manage to get one schoolie on a Red Fin swimmer and I did have a Slug-go chopped by a blue.  But, that was it after two hours of fishing.
That massive amount of bait that was around for the last couple of weeks seems to have departed in the latest round of northeast winds.  It could be hanging way out and deep, but I saw no bait and no concentrations of birds yesterday.  I also saw just about no fishermen around. I know we are still in August, a poor month in past years here in RI.  Let's hope better days are coming in September.