Headed up north, planning on taking a box of flies, a 4-piece rod in travel tube, needlenose plier with cutting edge, and 2 reels. Which of these can I carry on and which do I need to check? TSA website says pliers <7" are OK, but should I risk it?

Box of flies I'm taking is probably less than $20 all together, so if I lose it, it's not a huge setback, but should I risk that?

Also have seen a few things online saying people were required to check rods.

I've never checked my rods, in fact, I haven't checked my reels either. The flys and pliers, yes, I've always checked them to avoid a TSA agent pointing to a trash can and saying 'There'. I guess the places I've been I figured if I could get there with at least my rods and reels I could put the scrounge up the rest. Having said that, I have not flown with my rods in their metal tubes and we recently had a thread where I thought someone said it was discouraged because it resembled a baton. I use either a pvc multi-rod carrier or my rod/reel travel case.

My travel tube is plastic, so I think I may be OK there. Will probably check the flies and pliers just to be safe and carry on rod and reels.

Just landed in Sun Valley with 3 rods, flies, nippers, reels etc in a single fish pond carry on pack and for the 3rd trip in a row, they don't even look in the bag. I do leave the metal tubes at home and keep rods in cloth sacks within bag.

Not sure why I can't remember...but I swear I made a Rod case using a 2 inch pvc pipe that I carried on for the AK fishing trip last year.

I carried on 3 rods, three reels, and a bunch of flies (including 1/0 and 2/0 tarpon flies) to Belize a month ago in an Orvis fly rod case. No problem at all.

Never had an issue carrying on my fly rod.