Ron Brown has been a fish cutter for 35 years. At Harbor Fish Market in Portland, his most difficult job is cutting fillets from large fish with as little waste as possible. The yellowfin tuna he’s working on here weighed in at 107 pounds. Brown carved it into four 25-pound portions. He also prepares groundfish, including cod, cusk, haddock, flounder and hake. Brown used to be paid by the piece, which amounted to about $25 an hour, but today he’s paid by the hour and would rather not divulge his salary. He likes the job’s early hours, allowing him to leave work in the early afternoon, but he says the smell sometimes bothers him. “You get used to it,” he said. “But it gets old after a while.”

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