I tried something different, and I went with a 2 piece rod that I had, assembled it and stuck it my pannier straps with a neon green "flag" tied to the top of it, hoping it would attract attention to some degree. Not sure if that worked for attracting attention or not, but I broke the rod on the way home from camping two nights when it hit a tree limb? yeah, somehow it just broke it two, it was an old fiberglass fly rod from the 70's so maybe it was just fatigued?
So guess what I did next? Yesterday I was looking at the rod and thought ok, I'll just hacksaw off the bad part since it broke about 2 inches above the joint on the skinny section of the rod. Wrapped the cut off end with several layers of fiberglass tape till I got a snug fit into the sleeve, poured in a little Gorilla glue and then reinserted the taped end into the sleeve. I just looked at it tonight and it seems like it worked! So I might use it again as a combination flag pole/fly fishing pole. Not sure how the action will be after my fix job but it seemed ok when I tested it at the house, but now it's a one piece rod, which is fine for my purpose...unless it fails to cast flys well.
boy i'm a cheap [censored] aren't I? LOL!!
If it doesn't work or breaks again I may look into a 2 piece fly rod made of more modern materials that won't break should it bend far, because I sort of like the idea of it being used as a flag pole.