[Fiend]

I was hoping to hold off a bit before making my first post, but I'm visiting family in Winnipeg and was just gifted with a box of assorted flies that I'm not sure how to carry home to Vancouver.

Can I fly with flies in my carry-on luggage? I'm flying Westjet, and it's a box of 25 small barbless flies. I'd put them in my checked luggage if I had some, but all I have is a little backpack with some clothes that is too flimsy and strappy for me to want to throw it under the plane. It seems like the TSA is okay with these from what I could find online, but the search term 'fly with flies' doesn't exactly yield a lot of decent info.

I'd appreciate it if anyone could pass on personal experience or direct me to a thread where this has already been discussed. I've got my first fly rod and reel being sent along separately (I didn't have a chance to pack the flies in there), so I'm looking forward to my first casts and learning from the experienced fishermen I've seen posting here.

 

[Nick Weinrauch]

I dont have any experience but I do know that allot of these rules change day by day and from person to person. I wouldnt risk losing my flies. Mail em or get a bag you can check

 

[arrgh]

I would call the airline you are flying with. I flew a speargun into Vancouver once. It went in the cockpit with the pilots. I would imagine you will have no trouble but they confiscated nail clippers from my 76 year old mother.

 

[flytech]

Just mail them back to yourself, best bet.

 

[arrgh]

If you go to WestJet, restricted items, then click Sporting equipment, they disallow fishing rods as carry-on but say in brackets(no hooks) meaning they can go cargo but not with hooks. That tells me that as flytech said, better mail them.

 

[Fiend]

If you go to WestJet, restricted items, then click Sporting equipment, they disallow fishing rods as carry-on but say in brackets(no hooks) meaning they can go cargo but not with hooks. That tells me that as flytech said, better mail them.

Well, aren't I a moran. I got so caught up in looking everywhere for info that I didn't go to the one place I should have looked first.

Thanks for the replies!

 

[Sunshinecoastflyfishing]

I recently flew on a small domestic air canada flight with flies in my carry on. It wasn't a problem for me but my flights stayed within BC.

 

[arrgh]

How did it go for you , Fiend? What did you end up doing? I have to say my speargun was pre-911. It was very funny when they ran it through the X-Ray machine as it looked like a sawn-off shotgun! They very politely asked me WTF it was and then gave it to the pilots to bring to YVR.

 

[Fiend]

My brother flew home a week behind me and since he was checking a bag, I asked him to take them for me. I meant to ask at the airport, but the security people looked a touch surly, and they were busy enough getting people through the lines that I didn't want to aggravate anyone. If this comes up again, I'll just call the airport. Unfortunately, the reason I was away was a family health issue, so my mind was also on other things this trip.

One thing I was wondering while up in the air is if certain airports are more lenient with things like small flies. Ie: would Winnipeg security be more used to seeing fishing gear go through than, say, Toronto?

 

[Silver]

One thing I was wondering while up in the air is if certain airports are more lenient with things like small flies. Ie: would Winnipeg security be more used to seeing fishing gear go through than, say, Toronto?

That's possible. I once had a YVR agent take my corkscrew (I keep it with my toiletries...of course!) because of the little 2cm "knife" on the end used to slice the foil cap on wine bottles. I was bummed. It was from San Fran and worked really well. At the end of the day, there's an (over?) abundance of caution out there.

This site implies that tackle under 6cm would be allowed in Carry On; however, there also seems to be a difference between Hooks and Tackle, so pretty hard to gauge.