So when we were fishing on Southwest Ledge, 3 miles off of Block Island Saturday, waiting for the incoming tide that never seemed to start — and catching loads of big sea bass while we waited — I saw a boat zipping around with a dive flag up. Having been chased by a National Park ranger in Biscayne Bay for doing that — it’s only supposed to be up when you actually have a diver in the water — I looked a little closer and saw two spear fishermen aboard. Made sense — spear fishing for big striped bass while free diving is an epic challenge off Montauk and only possible during slack water in these otherwise ripping and dangerous currents.
Well, I thought nothing further about this. Then yesterday afternoon, my son, Capt. Wylie calls me from Bimini, the Bahamas, where he’s spending the weekend celebrating his 21st birthday with a bunch of friends. He asks me if I saw a couple of spear fishermen the day before when we were fishing off of Montauk. I said we did. He said I should take a look at Donald Trump, Jr.’s Instagram because that was Donny and his buddy. Wylie recognized my boat in the background of one of Don Jr.’s posted photos. Pretty funny. They speared some huge bass which I knew were just sitting there but wouldn’t bite until the incoming tide was flooding in.