Yep, I've been fishing some and....ditto!
What you describe is what I've been seeing too, except the biggest school I've seen was about 4 fish. My last couple trips I have been skunked, with one 32" fish before that. We were fishing with Gizzards and Threads from 3" to 8" on multiple trips and marking good fish at depths that should have let us limit out. You wouldn't happen to have been trolling at 0.5 to 0.7 Mph would you? Speed is the only thing that pops into my head that I could have changed up. Wish I had stopped completely a few times, and run up around 1 to 1.2 Mph a bit to see if my luck changed.
I sat out the summer and started back this fall and it seems there's just not as many fish as there was back in the spring. I hope I'm just not finding them and the summer die-off wasn't actually that bad.
Even though I only started last spring, the striper bug has bit me hard enough I'm already planning some trips to the river and on down into Cordell Hull.