Just got back from Florida. I use a travel backpack to take my gear although a duffle bag or something a bit longer then average suitcase would work too. The policies on number of rods etc are a bit weird and I believe need to be taken with a grain of salt. I just flew united which defines a fishing package as 2 rods, 1 reel, tackle box, boots and a net. I didn't have boots or a net but I took 4 rods and 5 reels instead and had no issues. I did phone in before doing so but the lady just said it didn't seem to make much sense to her and that if it fit in my bag it shouldn't be an issue. I did see people that have had issues with this if flying to mexico and other countries where they use it as an excuse to tax you on the extra equipment though.
All my rods are travel rods either 3 or 4 piece though. Anything longer will require some sort of tube and you have to be careful about oversize charges as well as length limits as each airline is different. I know there are travel surf rods but not sure about 15 foot models, think I have only seen 10 and maybe 12.
One thing interesting that I learned was that CATSA(who does the Canadian security screening) says that reels should go in your checked luggage. I had phoned them because of seeing comments about people having to strip fishing line off reels on some flights(mainly down in US/Mexico etc) and when the guy looked it up in his system he said that reels show up as checked luggage. Neither reels or line show up on their public website, I am not sure how that is usually enforced though as I know some guys do fly with their reels as carry on. Depending on the security officer you could run into issues though based on what the guy was telling me, hence why I just put them all in my checked bag.
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