The trip started near Sabine Pass, on a lonely, windswept stretch of sand just yards from the Texas–Louisiana border. Bret got there first—solo—and set up camp to hold the line for Gary and Dave, who’d be rolling in later.
The drive down was smooth. Camp went up, rods went out, and a sandwich was made. There’s something about setting up alone on a coast that still feels like it’s trying to shake off the last hurricane—quiet, gritty, and full of wind.
And the beach? A wreck.
At some point in the last year, a storm had ripped through and washed all the sand away, leaving behind a strange, sticky mix of mud and clay. Ugly, uneven, and soft in all the wrong places. The kind of surface that looks driveable until it isn’t.
Which is probably what happened when the first pickup rolled up and asked for help. A 2WD, predictably sunk. Bret already had his rooftop tent deployed and didn’t want to break camp, but he had traction boards on the Tundra—not his first time watching the coast eat a vehicle. He lined them up and helped get the truck back to safety.
It wouldn’t be the last stuck vehicle that week. Not by a long shot.
Once the sun dropped, things for real quiet.
Using a rod rigged for shark, and bait flown out by drone, Bret landed a bull red (Sciaenops ocellatus) just after sunset. Not a small one, either. Full shoulders. Solid fight.
He was completely alone out there.
No other camps. No other anglers.
Just sand in his face, a bull red in the sand, and the Milky Way hanging faint over the Gulf.
Sometime well after dark, Gary’s headlights showed up on the horizon.
Camp got a little louder. Day 0 was done.
The real fishing hadn’t even started yet.