Coastal Bait Co. employee Ralph Kent has worked for the company, on Custom House Wharf in Portland, for eight years. “I never work nine to five, and that’s how I like it,” Kent said. “I get to wake up and see the sunrise, and I don’t work at a desk. The desk isn’t for me.” Whitney Hayward/Staff Photographer

Coastal Bait’s Matt Edson breaks apart a shipment of frozen red perch from Iceland. Whitney Hayward/Staff Photographer

A barrel of herring in a salt brine mixture waits to be shipped out. Coastal Bait moves approximately 400 barrels of bait a day, six days a week, for lobstermen along the Maine coast. Whitney Hayward/Staff Photographer