We were anchored off Changi at about 1 am in the morning when the fish started biting. I'd just had a brief struggle with a huge eel-tailed Cattie and was trying to unhook it safely when Daniel said he was stuck on something.
I didn't pay him much attention as I was very much focused on risky task of unhooking the frisky 2 kilo plus Catfish. (One such fish had sent me painfully to the hospital sometime in 1998 where, out of complacency, I'd let a big wave swing the fish towards me and onto my knee... sigh... what a painful lesson.)
Anyway, after a couple of minutes, I had just unhooked the Catfish when Daniel exclaimed about catching a Stingray and quickly let whatever he had brought up fall back into the water. "Stingray?" I wondered as I peered over the edge of the boat to try to catch a glimpse of the creature Daniel had caught and ALMOST released. Nothing. So I pulled in his line slowly using my hand till I saw a long whip-like thingy slowly emerge from the water. Then I realized there were two whip-like thingies and heard a snapping sound as the creature curled and uncurled its body in a frantic struggle to free itself. The silhouette of the creature as well as the sound seemed vaguely familiar and it suddenly dawned upon me... "LOBSTER!!!!!!! QUICK, PULL IT IN!!!"
So that was how Daniel caught the lobster. For those of you who want to know what his lobster formula was, it was a whole Australian Pilchard double hooked on Big-mouth hooks.
Some people say that it was probably an escapee while others say that they used to catch them there. Personally, that was the third time I'd seen someone pull up a lobster in the wild on a hook in all my 19 years of fishing, so lobsters can indeed be found in the wild. Whatever it was, escapee or wild-child, it tasted GREAT... right, Daniel?
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