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Shortly after I retired, my wife and I flew to the UK for a two week vacation.

The first leg was in the Devon area, and I had made arrangements to fly fish while over there.

We never carry but a couple of hundred American $'s and a hundred pounds or the local currency on an overseas trip. We use our atm and credit cards and get the best rate.

We had less than $500 in cash. We were asked off the plane to talk to a guy. He kept asking us about how much money we had. We took it out and showed him, he refused to believe it. He wanted to look at my briefcase.

I had 3 fly rods (travel size), 3 good reels and two spools with lines for each reel in the the briefcase.

Suddenly it dawned on us why we were being quesioned. I had about $3500 of fly fishing gear in one briefcase. He thought that we were rich. My wife said "You caught us, my husband launders fly fishing equipment!"

The guy got embarrassed and let us back on the plane. On our return trip he was in the customs area watching people. When we started to open our stuff up on the table at customs, he told the custom agent to let us through. However, he wanted to see the two wooden Wheatley show case fly boxes with flies that I had bought in London.

They were in my briefcase with my rods and reels. I showed them to him. He admired them. I asked if the fly fishing gear triggered the first search, and he said yes.

Then I asked how he knew about the two Wheatley show boxes with flies. He said that every guy in Heathrow was jealous and so was he. He just wanted to see them. He shook our hands and apologized for the first encounter.