14/06/2026
It was a stunning sunny afternoon in Wicklow for the Tommy Keogh Open the third leg of the very competitive 2026 Leinster League on Kilcoole.
Many thanks to the Keogh Family for their extremely generous & ongoing sponsorship of the Competition in memory of great Irish & Leinster Angler Tommy, who is still spoken about with great admiration by the match angling fraternity.
As always the draw pays a big part in the draw, and a high number is always fancied when fishing kilcoole. It seemed very ominous when Alan Mulcahy pulled end peg 46, quickly in succession with Max Roche drawing 45, both of these anglers are top class and will always be ones to watch with any type of draw.
Other notable form anglers in the field were Team Fogarty (Ciaran, Gavin & Tommy) who are always in the frame on Wicklow beaches, Team Ryan (James & Phillip) fresh from their senior/junior double in the Mick Kearney Open, Eric “Poorman’s Pond Pete” Gasparro with camera crew in tow is always a serious competitor & TC Keogh also in great form after his recent zone win in the Mick Kearney.
First casts were sent seaward under crackling shingle at 7pm and by ~ quarter past there were a fair few dogs, gurnards & flats coming in along the stretch. In Zone A, Gavin Fogarty made the early running with a few flats and gurnards before finding a few dogs. Ciaran also nabbed a few high scoring dogs early and word on the street Gordy Hardman was among the fish.
In Zone B, as expected Max & Mully were tipping away on the end pegs, as was Conor Clancy nabbing fish consistently during the day. Fintan Kavanagh fresh from a long sojourn from Match Angling nabbed a tidy plaice aswell. Other anglers among the fish were Tommy Fogarty & Killian Farrelly.
On the turn of the run a couple of hours before high the fish came back on the feed and there was a good number of fish landed in short succession, as the run picked up and darkness fell anglers were very hopeful for big bags, but unfortunately this did not materialise. That said, in Zone A, Ciaran tipped away really strongly with dogs and a lovely 55cm spotted ray late on to take the zone with relative comfort. Eric put in a great late charge to pip Gavin for second in the zone with a handful of dogs after dark, a very strong performance from both of them.
In Zone B, a great battle ensued on the end pegs but a super consistent run of fish by Conor Clancy saw him take both the Zone & match out. A superb performance and a couple of great scalps to go with it!
In the juniors, the irrepressible Phillip Kennedy Ryan continued his impressive run, three dogs in his last three casts saw him take it out from Sean Keane with Ronan O’Brien a close third!
In the pools, Zone A the round was shared by Ciaran & Gavin Fogarty with a 29cm Gurnard, and the flat was won with the ever so greedy Ciaran with a 53cm spotted ray.
In Zone B, the round was also tied with a 31cm gurnard between Gary Foster & Tommy Fogarty. The Flat was also tied with a 55cm Spotted Ray between Alan Mulcahy & Tom McAdam.
Last order of the day was the Leinster Spring League run over the first three legs. Funnily, none of the main protagonist’s had a particularly good day with Alby Allan, James Ryan and Gary Foster finishing out of the frame. That said Alby managed to cling on to win the Spring League while Tommy Fogarty & Tom McAdam finished the mini league strongly to take second and third respectively.
While there is a lot of mickey taking, Eric has made a terrific video of the day, can be seen here -
https://youtu.be/E8K6l-esLa4?is=2W42_2mkzMW3qAtr
