This past Saturday I was up at 5:30 and it wasn't to go fishing. It was to run in the ASYMCA 8K (5 miles) Mud Run on Little Creek Naval Amphib Base in Virginia Beach. It really should have been called the sand run as half the course was in soft sand and we had to run up numerous sand dunes which was brutal.

This pic is right after crawling through the deepest mud pit and climbing up a 10' mound of sand.



And me running towards the finish line.



Here is one of the shallow mud pits.



There were numerous ones like this, plus we had to run across a 3' deep creek and get over a 5' wall. I finished 9th out of 24 in my age group of 50-54 and 110th out of 279 men. 1,129 runners finished the race. They had divisions for couples, teams, female, male, and under 19. It was a great challenge and my first race ever and I am already motivated to do a lot better next year.

After rinsing off in the ocean and hanging out for a bit, I headed out to Western Branch and put in around 12:30. After roughly 6 hours, I had landed 30 crappie of which just about everyone was 11" except for this guy, who went 1lb 4oz and was closer to 13" caught 17' deep over a submerged tree with a chartreuse/pearl wasshoppah.



All the crappie were caught deep with most caught 20' deep. Not many casting, most vertical jigging. Water temp was 82. Fishing has been lousy for me and 30 is the most I have caught since I got 38 at Burnt Mills back on May 26. Looks like I will be back out there tomorrow and will hopefully catch a few big ones.