This post by DCist Food contributor Jamie R. Liu

Clearly DCist was possessed. It takes something extraordinary to get me to wake up at 5:30am on a Saturday. I was wooed by the thought of seafood; my dreams were being haunted by fresh mussels and gorgeous fillets. So I decided to take an exploratory trip to the Maryland Wholesale Seafood Market, which distributes millions of pounds of seafood every year to numerous sources along the mid-Atlantic region.

Not for the squeamish, the Maryland Wholesale Seafood Market in Jessup, packs an early morning sensory wake up call. Namely, the strong scent of fish. It can be good to get there early, since it opens to the public at 4:30am, when bargain hunters and fresh fish seekers swoop in to make sure they can get red snapper and croaker.

Admission to the market is $2 until 10 a.m., after which it is free. The shops are along the loading docks, where you can watch forklifts fill trucks with their daily orders. Step carefully as they tend to zoom along quickly.

At the time of my visit, I was disappointed to find only one wholesaler open to the public. It was a family operation: one of the young kids dollying boxes of seafood, and another daughter handling weighing and pricing. The storeroom contains ice-filled boxes of trout, tilapia, sea bass, fluke, rockfish and numerous other finned friends. Some of the fish is locally caught and some of it is also flown in from other areas to meet the demands of consumers. Prices range from $2 to $5 a pound. Also for sale were mussels, shrimp and lobster. For those with an interest in large quantities of squid, a 10 pound box was available for $20.