I started fly fishing in the summer of 1997, at thirty-four, because a friend lent me a rod for a weekend and I spent most of that weekend with the line in a tree. I caught nothing. I went home and bought a rod. I have been at it two full seasons and part of a third now, and I am still a beginner, which is a good vantage point for writing this: I remember what I didn't know, because it wasn't long ago.

This page is the journal I keep in a waterproof notebook, typed up, along with the handful of basics I wish someone had laid out plainly for me at the start. There are books that will teach you more, and I list a couple at the bottom. But there is a lot that isn't in the books, mostly about how slow it all is, and how that turns out to be the point.

I fish small streams in the Sierra Nevada foothills and up into the mountains, within a couple of hours of home, almost always alone, almost always for wild trout that fit in one hand. I have never caught a large fish. I don't think about it much anymore.

Fly tackle is sized by the weight of the line, on a scale where small numbers are lighter. For trout on small to medium streams, the rod almost everyone starts with is a 5-weight, nine feet long (or eight and a half), with a reel to match. This is what I fish. It will cast a small dry fly and it will handle a weighted nymph, and it is forgiving of a beginner's timing. Anything from a 4- to a 6-weight is fine; a 5 is the safe middle.

The line matters more than the rod. Get a weight-forward floating line in the same weight as the rod (it will say "WF5F" on the box). Weight-forward means the heavy part is up front, which helps you load the rod on a short cast. Floating means it floats, which is what you want for almost everything on a small stream. The line is what you are actually casting; the fly weighs nothing and goes along for the ride.

Between the line and the fly goes a tapered leader, a length of clear monofilament that is thick where it ties to the line and thin at the end, so the cast unrolls and the fly lands gently. Nine feet is standard. The thin end is rated by an "X" number; 5X is a good all-around size for small trout and small flies, and 4X if you are fishing something bigger or bushier. To the end of the leader you tie a foot or two of tippet, which is just more monofilament of the same diameter, so you don't shorten your leader every time you change flies.

Beyond that: a small box of flies (see below), nippers for trimming knots, a pair of forceps for getting the hook out, a bottle of floatant to keep dry flies dry, and a hat. I waded wet in old sneakers for a full season before I bought waders. Sunglasses that cut the glare (polarized) let you see into the water, and I would buy those before waders.

My whole outfit, rod, reel and line, cost less than $200 in 1997. It still works. See the note at the bottom.

You can fish for years with two knots. One ties the fly to the tippet; the other ties tippet to leader. Learn them at the kitchen table with a piece of string and a paper clip before you try them streamside with cold hands and a fish rising. I did not do this. Learn from me.

A fly shop wall is a wonderful and paralyzing thing. Here is what I have learned: on the small streams I fish, a box with these four patterns in a couple of sizes will catch fish on most days of the season, and the days it won't, nothing else would have either.

I tie none of these yet. A fly shop will sell you good ones for a dollar and a half or two apiece, and losing them in trees is part of the tuition.

You cannot learn to cast from words. But words can tell you what to feel for, and then a lawn and an hour will do the rest. Here is what finally worked for me.

Strip out about twenty-five feet of line and lay it straight on the grass in front of you. Hold the rod like a handshake, thumb on top, pointing down the rod. Imagine a clock face beside you: the rod pointing straight up is twelve o'clock, straight ahead is nine, straight behind is three.

The back cast. Starting with the rod tip low and the line straight, raise the rod smoothly, speeding up as you go, and stop it crisply at about one o'clock, just past straight up. The stop is the whole thing. The rod bends under the weight of the moving line, and when you stop it hard, it flings the line up and behind you.

The pause. Wait. This is where every beginner (me, most of the first summer) goes wrong. The line has to unroll straight behind you before you come forward, or it will crack like a whip and the fly will snap off. The pause is longer than you think: for twenty-five feet of line, count "one-and" in your head. Look over your shoulder the first fifty times. It's allowed.

The forward cast. When the line is nearly straight behind, drive the rod forward, again speeding up, and stop it crisply at about ten o'clock. The line unrolls in front, and as it straightens, lower the rod tip to follow it down to the water. The fly should land last, gently, at the end of the straightened leader.

That's it: accelerate to a stop, pause, accelerate to a stop. Everything else is timing, and the timing comes from doing it, on the lawn, ten minutes a day, until your wrist knows it. A good caster uses almost no strength. When my arm gets tired, I know I'm doing it wrong.

On a small stream you will rarely cast more than twenty feet, and the trees mean you will often not get a back cast at all. The roll cast, which needs no room behind you, is the next one to learn, and it is easier than it looks. I'll write it up when I'm sure I'm doing it right.

I put every fish back. On the small streams I fish, the wild trout are few and slow-growing, and the six-inch one you keep may have taken three or four years to get that size. Also, I like knowing it's still there. If you release fish, do it so they live:

• Pinch the barb down on every hook with your forceps before you tie it on. A barbless hook comes out in a second, often without touching the fish. You will lose a few more fish while playing them. Fine.
• Bring the fish in quickly. Playing a small trout to exhaustion for the fun of it kills it later, out of sight.
• Wet your hands before you touch a fish, every time. Dry hands strip the slime coat that protects it from infection. Better still, don't lift it at all: slide the hook out while the fish is in the water.
• Don't squeeze, and don't put your fingers in the gills. Hold it gently, upside down if it's thrashing; that calms them.
• Hold it facing into the current until it swims off on its own. Don't throw it back. If it turns belly-up, hold it again, longer.
• If the hook is deep, cut the tippet and leave it. The fish will shed it.

None of this is hard, and all of it becomes habit. The thing I most want a new fly fisher to understand is that the fish does not have to come out of the water for the day to have counted.

Water names are the names I use, which are not always the ones on the map; some of these places are small enough that I'd rather not point at them. Fish are counted honestly, which is why the numbers are low.

Fish this year so far: 24. Flies lost: 21. Falls in: 3. Days that were wasted: none.

This is the one piece of advice I feel sure enough of to put in a box. When you walk into a fly shop for the first time, someone kind and knowledgeable will show you a beautiful rod that costs as much as a used car payment, and it will be a better rod than the $100 one next to it, and you will be able to tell no difference between them whatsoever for at least two seasons. You do not yet have the cast that the good rod is built for. Buy the modest rod, a good line, and a lesson if one is offered, and spend the rest on gas to get to the water. If, in three years, you still fish and you can feel what the cheap rod won't do, then you have earned the good one and you'll know which one you want. I'm not there yet. I'm not in a hurry.

The same goes for waders, vests with thirty pockets, and fly boxes with three hundred compartments. A trout does not know what your rod cost. It knows whether the fly drifted naturally, and that is something you learn with your feet and your eyes, on the water, for free.