I swear this is true, and just happened 3 days ago!

My fishin' buggy with the rod racks inside had a flat tire, a big nail thru it that couldn't be plugged. So we took my Ford Ranger pickup with a camper shell, and took our 4-pc rods apart, still string up with large streamers attached, into 2 sections for transport. Done it a zillion times.

The camper shell back door seals and latches just fine against the tailgate. But there's about a 3/8-1/2 inch gap between the tailgate and body on both sides.

You get the idea. Somehow, the 2 top sections of Ralph's home-built fly rod (a St. Croix Avid 3 wt) migrated into this gap, his leader broke, the large fly migrated down thru 5 snake guides, and the top 2 sections went out the back of truck through that tiny gap, leaving the butt and 2nd section with line attached, and a leader with fly attached, in the truck.

I don't think we could re-produce this in a million years. There were many sections of washboard dirt road on the 75 mile drive, Ralph searched the whole route again yesterday. Of course the county road crew was grading the bumpiest sections -- though they said if they saw it, they bring it back to him (nice folks that maintain our rural roads here in CO).

Anyway -- next time we have to use my pickup without rod racks, I will use some masking tape to secure the broken down rod sections to each other. I doubt the entire reel could make it through that tiny slot -- but after that trip, I think anything is possible.

Ralph is in mourning today. We'll be headed down to order 2 new rod sections from St. Croix ASAP.

DANBOB