One afternoon I was up on the Firehole River in Yellowstone Park and had just completed lining up my 5 wt Winston. The sky let go about that time with a heavy thunder shower so I layed the rod on the hood of my truck and I climbed in behind the wheel to wait for the storm out. About 5 minutes into the shower it started to hail pea size pellets. I sat there and watched them bounce off the hood of the truck and noticed an occasional hail pellet hit the tip of the rod which was hanging over the front the truck. Was curious as how often a piece of hail would hit the tip and make the tip bounce,( I don't think I was stoned ). Sat there watching the tip bounce on occasion for about 3 minutes when the last 3 inches of the tip went down and did not come back up.
I couldnt believe my eyes that a pea size piece of hail could snap the tip right off a 600 dollar fly rod but it did.
About finding rods on the road. I worked for the park service for 7 years at Madison Junction in Yellowstone and every Summer my road crew would bring in about a dozen fly rods that had fallen off the roofs of moving cars. About half were claimed at the rangers office but the other half went unclaimed. And believe it or not most stayed intacted with just a few scratches.