I have smoked a briar for years (at least 22 years). I started because I loved the smell of my dad’s pipe tobacco and the process of preparing and smoking the pipe was satisfying. I don’t smoke the pipe that often in the course of a year. When I am camping and of course fishing or doing yard work, I light my briar and enjoy the moment. I raise this whole process because I wonder if any of you have had a similar event occur related to a tradition, obsession, addiction that impacts your flyfishing experience. I will recount one episode that embodies and explains a seemingly pleasant pastime’s impact upon the psyche. I was fishing a Central Oregon lake on a cold and windy April day. All was well with the world: the fish were swirling in the shallows and could be caught by walking the shore or from the pontoon boat. I was so excited and pleased by the immediate successes I had that I had forgotten to light my briar…part of my initial venturing forth onto the lake, settling in and working the fly’s magic. So, I drifted along in the breeze and filled the pipe’s bowl and tamped the tobacco down just so and reached into my pocket for the lighter and….NO LIGHTER!  What?  I checked again…nope…no lighter. I checked the cargo pockets of the pontoon boat…no lighter.  Well, damn!  This was unsettling (should it be?) No. But it was. This is when I discovered the entrenched nature of this past time upon my routine. I was really out of sync and sorts. The fish were  there and cooperative. Was that enough? No. I needed to light that pipe. No one was near to borrow a light and, at any rate, they all had quit smoking years before. So, I rowed/kicked back to the shore and extricated myself from my gear and went to my p-u and searched high and low for a lighter. None. Geeeez, the consternation. At last, I found a book of matches….say six matches. Certainly not enough for a days worth of fishing. I lit one and whoooph, out from the wind. I turned to shelter myself from the wind and whoooph out again. So, this following moment is the one etched in my mind of how desparate and psychologically dependent I had become upon that lit pipe: I hunkered down beside my truck out of the wind and expended two more matches lighting my briar. I recalled how frigging hyped and determined I was upon getting that pipe lit, come hell or high water. I then chuckled to myself at my heretofore unknown dependence…I had always had matches or a lighter. So, the second part of this obsessive tale is that I now have several lighters with me when fishing and backups in the truck. For crying out loud! I know, I know. It is a pathetic tale. I have lost pliers, forceps, tippet material, etc. and dealt with it. But nothing ever equaled that day in showing me how much a part of my flyfishing experience that darn briar had become.