We study the problem of deterministic approximate counting of matchings and independent sets in graphs of bounded connective constant. More generally, we consider the problem of evaluating the partition functions of the monomer-dimer model (which is defined as a weighted sum over all matchings where each matching is given a weight $γ^{|V| - 2 |M|}$ in terms of a fixed parameter gamma called the monomer activity) and the hard core model (which is defined as a weighted sum over all independent sets where an independent set I is given a weight $λ^{|I|}$ in terms of a fixed parameter lambda called the vertex activity). The connective constant is a natural measure of the average degree of a graph which has been studied extensively in combinatorics and mathematical physics, and can be bounded by a constant even for certain unbounded degree graphs such as those sampled from the sparse Erdős-Rényi model $G(n, d/n)$. Our main technical contribution is to prove the best possible rates of decay of correlations in the natural probability distributions induced by both the hard core model and the monomer-dimer model in graphs with a given bound on the connective constant. These results on decay of correlations are obtained using a new framework based on the so-called message approach that has been extensively used recently to prove such results for bounded degree graphs. We then use these optimal decay of correlations results to obtain FPTASs for the two problems on graphs of bounded connective constant. Our techniques also allow us to improve upon known bounds for decay of correlations for the hard core model on various regular lattices, including those obtained by Restrepo, Shin, Vigoda and Tetali (2011) for the special case of Z^2 using sophisticated numerically intensive methods tailored to that special case.