cannot find symbol

New to java. I have a snippet of code that I can compile fine on a FreeBSD
box running 1.1.4, or something similar:

    FileInputStream fs = new FileInputStream(f);
    InputStreamReader sirLine;
    BufferedReader fileInput;
    sirLine = new InputStreamReader(fs);
    fileInput = new BufferedReader(sirLine);
    while ( j <= 53 ) {
        fileline = fileInput.readLine();

I just installed NetBeans 5.0 on WinXP as my FreeBSD box isn't portable. I
loaded the source files and now I get an error for the first line that
says:

unreported excpeption java.io.FileNotFoundException; must be caught or
declared to be thrown

I get the same error for the last line. Ok, not sure what that meant so I
googled and came up with this:

        try{
    FileInputStream fs = new FileInputStream(f);
        }
        catch(FileNotFoundException fnfE){
            System.err.println("File not found!");
        }
    InputStreamReader sirLine;
    BufferedReader fileInput;
    sirLine = new InputStreamReader(fs);
    fileInput = new BufferedReader(sirLine);
    while ( j <= 53 ) {
        fileline = fileInput.readLine();

Ok, that made the original error go away and I think I understand why.
Seems like NetBeans is tying to make me write fault tolerant code, jerk.
However I have a new error that I don't understand. The sirLine = new...
line gives me:

cannot find symbol
symbol : variable fs
location: class hockey_pool.Main

I have googled for this and cannot find what this means. I thought that it
meant that I have not defined a variable, but I have in the line in the
try{}. So, what am I missing here?

Thanks,

fybar