Sh!t You Shouldn’t Bring on a Plane on a Fishing Trip

If you’re flying to a dreamed-about fishing destination, you don’t want to arrive and find that your gear has not managed to join you. Even worse, you don’t want to get stopped and possibly arrested because there was something dangerous or illegal in your checked or carry-on luggage.

Remember, if you’re traveling internationally it’s critical to know not just TSA’s rules, but also those of the country or countries you’ll be visiting. Many of us were reminded of this recently when a Massachusetts tourist was detained on the islands of Turks and Caicos when authorities found ammunition that (assumedly inadvertently) was left in his bag. You don’t want to end up in any jail, but your legal problems are likely more difficult to resolve outside of your home country.

Before traveling with any potentially questionable items, be sure to read the TSA guidelines and your airline’s policies. In fact, you should print out those documents and bring them with you to the airport. While it is legal to check firearms to certain destinations on certain airlines with appropriate procedures, it goes without saying that you should not try to bring them on the plane on your person or in your carry-on. Last year TSA detected nearly 7,000 firearms at security checkpoints. That’s not a position you should put yourself in. However, that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Here are more articles about oddball items travelers tried to bring along for the ride:  

• Snakes almost on a plane: TSA discovers a bag with small snakes in passenger's pants

• The Most Wild Items TSA Confiscated in 2023

• Just 'plane bizarre': TSA Idaho releases Top 10 confiscated items

• Airport Security Confiscates Runner’s Miami Marathon Medal

• Guns, knives and cats: These are the things the TSA stops

• The Strange Items the TSA Confiscated at MSP Airport in Minnesota

• The Craziest TSA Airport Confiscations Of 2023

• TSA discovers drugs inside 'beloved Cajun seasoning', adds it to top 10 list of catches

• US: Sniffer dog finds mummified monkeys inside passenger's luggage at Boston Logan Airport

• TSA says 'too many' people accidentally x-ray their pets when going through security

And if you do have questions about items that you or others had confiscated, here are a few articles that might help to answer them:

TSA: What happens to items left at security checkpoints? Is there a process?

What Happens to Items Confiscated by the TSA—and Can You Get Them Back?

There's a store in Texas where TSA-confiscated items end up