Fishing community remembers Sroka

Andy Mikos was fishing the R4 early Saturday when smoke bloomed near the Baha’i Temple. He thought, ‘‘I hope it is not a boat.’’

It was. Mitch Sroka, 67, of Arlington Heights died when his boat exploded at the fuel dock of Wilmette Harbor.

‘‘I couldn’t believe the force of the explosion,’’ Mikos said.

Debris rained on the Sheridan Road bridge.

Tributes to Sroka came from across the fishing community.

‘‘Fishing with Mitch was always a pleasure because he enjoyed fishing for the sake of fishing,’’ said Capt. Randy Schmidt, who fished the Zilian Memorial with Sroka. ‘‘It did not matter to him if we won or lost. It was all about the fishing and the camaraderie.

‘‘Mitch was also very willing to share fishing information. This was very important to charter captains. We all knew Mitch and knew that we could count on him to give us accurate information about whether there were fish around the R4, his primary fishing area.’’

‘‘Fishing with him, he would always let you use what you wanted and then bust your stones when he would change it and we would catch a fish,’’ Bruce Kalinowski emailed. ‘‘He loved his boat and lived for fishing.’’

Of Sroka’s 28-foot boat, ‘‘Scorpion,’’ Mikos said: ‘‘If I could imagine a boat for fishing Lake Michigan, that would be it.’’

Mikos knew Sroka from years of sharing information on the marine radio and, in recent years, from Trollers Unlimited, a tight-knit group of hard-core fishermen.

‘‘I still can’t wrap my head around it,’’ Mikos said.