HOBE SOUND, Fla. — As he angles the boat named Snap Dragon toward this pocket of possibility, just up the intracoastal along Jupiter Island, Miles Mikolas reads the current to find a crease in it. His goal is to get just far enough away from a bridge so that he can cast lines just close enough to where he thinks there might be treasure.
"It's fishy out here," he says.
He means it as a compliment.
"I got jig heads ready right here," Mikolas announces. "Get that box of hooks out?"
The Cardinals right-hander nods toward friend and Jupiter High classmate Alden Wassenaar, who sets to work on the hooks. They've been doing this since they were kids. Only the gear has changed. And some neighbors. He once saw Celine Dion running nearby this spot, and we'll later spy Michael Jordan's Catch-23 at its dock. Jupiter, Florida, born, Jupiter raised, and in his sixth spring training with the Cardinals in Jupiter, these waterways are the adventure land of Miles Mikolas' youth, still explored with an adulthood upgrade. The 34-foot SeaVee Z with its baby blue hull steadies so as not to upset the water and what's below.
"You don't want to gear up and gear down," Wassenaar explains. "Get as much in the water without them seeing it."
Within minutes, lines are cast — more reels than there are people on the boat.
Asked how many fishing rods he has, Mikolas answers: "Not enough."
With the bow of the boat toward the bridge, three people have lines out in that direction. It took a guest a few casts to get there, but all got in the same vicinity. Yet it's Mikolas who brings in and releases two fish before the others catch one. He explains that it's all in how he makes the bait dance. It's a subtle flick of the wrist, a slight tug, or a pause before he pulls the string. It's all in the touch, says the All-Star pitcher. Mikolas remains casual as he's reeling in more than the others combined, but beneath the surface it's a competition.
"You're just waiting," he says several days later. "You're always waiting. Any bite could be it. Any nibble could be the big one. You never know until you set the hook into it — which is kind of exciting. You feel the nibbles and the taps and you get the take. But you're never really sure until you set up on it. And then that's the other part of the fun."
Nibble. Tap. Take. Set up.
Sounds like he's toying with a batter.
"A little bit," Mikolas agrees. "You're trying to fool the fish like you're trying to fool the batter. Except you want to connect on a fish, not on a hitter. You want the fish to come tight."
As he took Snap Dragon out one recent morning for his final fishing trip before the start of spring training, Mikolas invited along this Post-Dispatch baseball writer. It was a chance to see Mikolas' hobby and hometown right there, from sea level. A few months before the trip, Mikolas had some questions. Know how to swim? Former lifeguard, check. Know any knots? Boy Scouts, check. Ever fish before? Canoe trip through the Boundary Waters, so yeah, some. He had a final request and came up previously with another question. Please pick up a dozen donuts from Jupiter Donut. And, what about seasickness?
Try not to get sprinkles everywhere.
It would not have been an issue, but conditions kept the boat out of open water for this trip. So Mikolas plots a calmer search in areas he grew up fishing. As the day begins, a friend along for the trip asks about the types of fish swimming in the string of water along Jupiter Island, and also if there might be sharks.
"Hold on," Mikolas says, "I can tell you if there are sharks in the water."
He leans over, dips his index finger in the water.
He then touches it to his lip and delivers a verdict, deadpan.
"It's salty. Yeah, there are sharks in the water."
Drawn by his access to these waterways, a fondness for the outdoors, and, he acknowledges, a love for eating fresh fish, Mikolas began dropping hooks near Hobe Sound before he had a boat. He said it was common for kids to have books to memorize and identify all the fish around them. He wrapped the cuffs of his jeans with duct tape once to ward off visitors slithering in as he waded out. It didn't hold.
He graduated to a kayak to navigate the nearby Loxahatchee River. And, when he returned from Japan after a successful season starting in one of Asia's top professional leagues and a higher salary, he purchased a 22-foot bay boat, his first.
"I like being out in nature a good bit, and I think with saltwater fishing in particular the idea of you're really never quite sure what you're going to catch," Mikolas says. "We're just using shrimp but we could have hooked into literally almost anything. We caught some jacks and catfish. We could have caught snook. We could have caught redfish. We could have hooked a tarpon. We could have hooked a big grouper, a snapper. Sometimes you can tell what it is right when you hook it. Hey, it's something small. Or, hey, it's fighting like such and such fish. But sometimes you just never know.
"I've lost countless fish where I can only assume that I know what it was," he says. "But I'll never know. And those are the fish that haunt you. You just go to sleep wondering."
Of course, he has one tale.
Any baited hook can bring back a Hemingway.
"The big swordfish we lost a few years ago," Mikolas says. "I know that we had a swordfish bite, and we know that it was huge. We lost it. We never saw it. So, I can only imagine that it was a tremendous fish."
This offseason, Mikolas introduced Andrew Knizner to fishing and, off Snap Dragon, Knizner caught his first sailfish. Earlier this month, Knizner joined Mikolas and others for a daytrip to fish by the Bahamas. They left the inlet at a time when "you know you're one of the first boats on the water — catching a sunrise from the ocean," Mikolas says. On the way back, the boat slowed enough to wake Mikolas from a nap in a bean bag chair and all Knizner recalled was the frenzy that followed. Mikolas' friend had spotted a rip current and "nice seaweed line." Within minutes they saw a 20-pound mahi mahi and, Mikolas says, "when mahi come around the boat it's usually a melee."
His sleep was peaceful because his cooler was full that day.
Not so much on that last trip.
All along the intracoastal, Mikolas did search for signs of spots to cast.
"Everywhere you go, it can look fishy," he says, again using it as a compliment. "Even in Jupiter. Oooh, that dock has got a lot of barnacles on it. I bet there are a lot of fish under there. Oooh, that bridge looks good. That sandbar. That pylon! Sometimes it's tough because everything can look fishy. When there are mangroves just everywhere you assume that there is just fish everywhere."
Mikolas would know because few know Jupiter like he does.
Starting back in 2018 when he took the Post-Dispatch on a tour of his favorite Jupiter locales — including a sub shop where, sources say, two baseball writers ate Saturday — Mikolas has been an unofficial host of Cardinals spring training.
"I would have to say that Miles is about as Jupiter as you can get," Knizner said. "I think his personality, his hobbies and interests, and obviously longevity of living in Jupiter. I mean, if you have your picture up at a shop somewhere in a town where you grew up you're definitely Mr. Whatever Town That Is."
On this recent fishing trip, Mikolas pointed out the homes of some famous Jupiter residents as well as places he frequented as a kid. What he didn't see was any fish piling up in the cooler. There was a nice black drum hooked but not landed.
Mikolas later gave a teammate the same scouting report on the reporter's tools as the reporter admitted: subpar casting. Out of practice. Poor timing.
"Below average," Mikolas decides. "Passable. Workable."
Some of the final casts were better casts and pulled in fish, such as a couple catfish and a jack near the dock. All tossed back. But the late rally qualified for what the host called "a trash can slam."
So, a solid showing.
"Not necessarily," Mikolas says. "But on days when you're not catching ..."
Within days of that final trip, Mikolas began official workouts, prepping for Team USA, the World Baseball Classic, the Cardinals' season, and what could be his last spring training in Jupiter. Since returning from Japan to the majors, Mikolas' pairing with the Cardinals has had many mutual benefits. He won 18 games his first year and made 32 starts in three of the past five seasons. He's a two-time All-Star, including this past summer. Mikolas signed a four-year, $68 million extension in 2019 that assured him a long run at home in Jupiter. He celebrated by going to a boat show.
That was when he bought Snap Dragon, a boat named for a curveball and decorated with a dragon coiled around a baseball.
"Evolution from kayaks to this," Wassenaar said.
The Cardinals have only one current starter under contract beyond this year and the match with Mikolas is obvious. The team is interested in discussing an extension at some point this spring. Mikolas is open to those talks, but any attempt to bait an answer on how much he'd like to return is a fishing expedition. There are other teams in Palm Beach County, redfish near Tampa, and he says, "fishing is good on (Florida's) west coast, too."
Which means when he sends that big-league cast toward the bridge next offseason and gives it a flick to see if any fish are biting this time, he could already be that familiar story.
The one that got away.
