“Let’s drop down to 100, then up to 75 and back down to 100 again,” said the angler leading our early-morning salmon fishing expedition in Puget Sound, an inlet off the eastern portion of the North Pacific Ocean near Seattle. I and other women journalists, along with women leaders from the Recreational Boating and Fishing Foundation, had gathered in Seattle for a week of taking to the water to fish. I’d never fished before—so I’d come to Seattle with lots of trepidation along with my excitement for a new experience.

I cocked my head to the side, reeling the line down as instructed, using my fingers to control the speed as to prevent massive tangles. Bitterly cold air whipped past my face. My stomach rumbled, reminding me that because my wakeup had been so early, nausea gave way to my hunger. Tears streamed down my cheeks as I bit my lips, licking them to prevent the frigid wind from drying them out. But it didn’t help.

“How will I know if I’ve caught something?”

The sound of clicking and reeling, the gentle lapping of the water murmured in the background. Though I’d listened intently to the little bit of instruction I’d gotten once I’d boarded our charter, I still felt as if I had no idea what I was doing. Certainly not enough to catch an actual fish.

“Trust me, you’ll know,” the angler leading our charter said, offering me a wry smile with a slight chuckle.

Maybe he could feel my anxiety or my disbelief that this fishing expedition would be fruitful. Maybe the sound of my grunts and deep sighs had been telltale signs that my frustration reigned supreme far above my enjoyment. But somewhere in this process, somewhere out on the water in the middle of Puget Sound, stillness found me.

My mind quieted. Looking out onto the water and focusing on the reel, winding it up and down, up and down, up and down, became my sole fixation. And I became, once again, a little girl, watching my dad fish on a little pond behind our home in Tampa Bay, Florida, a memory I didn’t even know I could easily recall.

For many Black little girls, our first introduction to fishing and anglers comes through our fathers. The men in our family—uncles, grandfathers, fathers, cousins—dutifully plan out fishing trips as a form of bonding and male connection. My dad, a man who was born in Lagos, Nigeria, grew up near the water, casting lines on the shores of the same Atlantic Ocean where our ancestors were stolen from. He fished and caught, then gutted, scaled and fileted the fish, dropping them in pots of stew, the fiery tomato-based dish cradled over fluffy white rice in bowls.

Water for Black folk holds a tangled history for us—it represents so much pain and the migratory stories of our ancestors. Water is transportation. It is healing, a reprieve. It is salvation and a chance to look beyond ourselves. For us, when we take to the water, it is not only to delve into leisure and slow the pace of our lives and center it in gratefulness; it is also active reclamation. When we fish, when we ready ourselves to spend hours on the water, in a boat, kayak, yacht or canoe, we are reorienting with a force that has always been ours, a place that’s always been our home, though we were convinced otherwise, through force or generational trauma.

Fishing—and being an angler—is an ancestral African practice. Like that of my dad who fished off the coast of Lagos, those enslaved in the Americas brought those skills with them. We know this to be true about those enslaved in Virginia, the land of more than 50,000 miles of rivers and other tributaries due to the Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Ocean. Beginning in 1619 when the first enslaved Africans were brought to Virginia, they hauled nets, starting their days early on the water—exactly like I did during my time in Seattle on Puget Sound—harvesting crabs and gathering oysters. These men, these mariners, fishers and watermen, were so skilled at what they did that some of them served in the Virginia Navy during the Revolutionary War from 1775 to 1783. Decades later, some of these same men joined the U.S. Navy to fight on behalf of the Union during the Civil War.

Beyond those who were enslaved, working for no wages and exploited for their talents, there are other Black anglers and maritime experts throughout history who have contributed to our legacy of tending to the water and finding our solace there.

Those like Olivia Juliette Hooker, the first Black woman to join the U.S. Coast Guard in February 1945. From Muskogge, Oklahoma, Hooker was also one of the last known survivors of the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921. Or Alfred Williams, affectionately known as the “bass master,” who first fished on the Pearl River in Mississippi. He translated his lived experience from his childhood into a professional fishing career, becoming the first Black person to qualify for the Bassmaster Classic in 1983. Lynn Alfred “Lindsay” Williams, III, from Evanston, Illinois, was a sailor who represented the Chicago Yacht Club at the Japan Summer Olympics in 1964, winning a silver medal, the first Black person to do so at the time.

In today’s modern era, when the sport and leisure activity of fishing is overtaken by whiteness, we must not forget our history, and our angler forefathers and foremothers. Organizations throughout the country endeavor to do this work and to make the outdoors more inclusive for us—who hearken back to our legacy on the water. Groups like Brown Folks Fishing and Ebony Anglers, the latter of which is a competitive fishing team composed of five Black women based in Raleigh, North Carolina.

The male angler who led our all-women charter on Puget Sound? He was right about simply knowing when I’d caught something. Hours later, when the winds slowed to a gentle hum and the sun parted through the thunderous, low-hanging clouds, I felt a tug on my line. As I tried to reel it in, the resistance became harder and harder. That was when I knew.

And when I pulled the line up to the surface, I was delighted and screamed with glee to find two flounder, fighting over the bait, on my line. I thought about my Dad, with me at his heels as a child, leisurely casting a line on that murky pond in Tampa Bay all those years ago.

And I called to name, silently to myself, all the other Black people who had been on this journey before me: Olivia Juliette Hooker, Alfred Williams, Lindsay Williams and countless others, those with names I knew and those I don’t, because I realized my journey and theirs were interconnected. A big, looming circle with ripples to be felt for generations to come. Once again, the water had shown me something. And left me with a parting gift to continue on.

Nneka M. Okona is a journalist and author from Atlanta, Georgia and based in Fort Worth, Texas. Her work focuses on the intersection between the American South, history and Black people. A true traveler at heart, she is the founder of travel media company Those Who Soar, a travel resource for Black women.

This story was created by Detour, a journalism brand focused on the best stories in Black travel, in partnership with McClatchy’s The Charlotte Observer and Miami Herald. Detour’s approach to travel and storytelling seeks to tell previously under-reported or ignored narratives by shifting away from the customary routes framed in Eurocentrism. The detour team is made up of an A-list of award-winning journalists, writers, historians, photographers, illustrators and filmmakers.

This story was originally published June 24, 2022 9:00 AM.