American Pride Seafood

Glenn Bickleman and Charlie Corris didn't know each other as boys on Long Island, but they both started fishing in the same way: they spent their after school hours biking to the water, digging up clams with a rake. For Charlie, once he'd gathered buckets of them, he'd hop back on his bike and sell his neighbors thirty clams for a $1. "Needless to say," he tells, "I wasn't getting rich." Yet, he had found his calling, and by high school, he bought his first boat. Since then, he says, "I've always been a fisherman."

The future business partners of American Pride Seafood met in 2010 in the Great South Bay of Long Island. "Glenn was crabbing and I was fishing," Charlie says, and they struck up a conversation about the local markets where Glenn had been selling his catch. He wanted to expand into new markets. Charlie was interested in trying them out, so they bought a boat and went into business together. Now they have three boats that set out regularly from Montauk, Shinnecock, Jones' Inlet, among other Long Island ports, to bring fresh fish to their crowds of market customers. "It's great being at the market," Glenn says, "We look forward to it every week."

Exactly at what time the boats will launch into the ocean remains a carefully watched, daily mystery. "We go fishing when the weather breaks," Charlie says. Commercial fishing is not a 9 to 5 job, and if the weather clears at midnight, then that's when they go. Sometimes, the American Pride crew works 40 or 50 hours straight. "I've set out at every minute of the day on every day of the year, including every holiday. I love the independence and the challenge of it," he explains. Then he adds with a grin, "The fish don't know what time it is."