I can remember back in the late 70's early 80's catching weakfish up to 18 lbs off of buoy 20 Stratford ct, penfield reef and sunken island southport, the hot ticket was jelly worms, redfins and we also caught them on bunker chunks, in the summer of 83 I was recuperating from a near fatal accident, I had gone through physical therapy for 2 years prior to that, I was feeling pretty good so my friend and I spent the whole summer, fishing off of sunken island, it was a crazy year, the sand eels would show up every evening depending on the tide, we just anchored up and waited, sometimes for hours but eventually it happened , the water would start to boil and we tossed those redfins and cranked as slow as possible, bass, weaks and blues, right up to Oct, and then it stopped, never saw anything like it till the mid 90's when the school bass came in off of Bridgeport and penfield reef, fish after fish only to disappear weeks later, I have been privy to a lot of strange phenomenon if you will, like the yellow fin showing up in butterfish hole from 84 to 87, only to disappear in 88 and never return, i'm talking yellowfin up to 200lbs, look at cod fishing, I remember going out on the My Joy out of Niantic ct, it was my 21st , birthday in January 1972 , I caught cod up to 55 lbs, last trip I took for cod was on the helen H, late 90's early 2000, fish up to 25lbs lots of haddock, I haven't gone again since then, Now your lucky when you catch a 15lber.
I think it's all the above, to choose just one cause is not possible.
