Dunno Linesides. You've been plying the waters seriously for a LOT longer than I have but I've got a sneakin suspiscion that you fish one of the big staging areas of fish (I won't say which one online
). My thinking is that the closer you fish to these staging areas, the less you might see of a decline. People with skilld that fish Block Island, especially by boat, will get big fish - over 30#s - pretty consistently. The same will hold true for those fishing Montauk/Fishers/the Race as those are really the same waters. Race point/back side of the Cape, Stellwagen - that's a staging area (as is Billingsgate until the tuna come in). And the Cuttyhunk/Elizabeths Islands/west side of MV is also one of those staging areas. To a lesser extent, Cape Anne...Now these might shift around and you may have some fish well offshore but typically, if we were to put a finger on these fish, it would probably be in these places.
The abundance of large fish will determine if it's lean and you only find those fish close to these staging areas or if it's strong, the big fish will be spread out and caught in MANY of these non-staging areas in addition to those staging areas... The more fish - the more spead out...
Just my thinkin'