ROCKPORT — Film crews and a reporter from Good Morning America, the ABC daily television set up shop near the bait truck at Rockport Harbor May 26, featuring the coast of Maine, and in particular, commercial lobster fisherman Sadie Samuels, as part of the show’s focus on each of the 50 states.

The “Rise and Shine” series is sending reporters to states as the pandemic eases, to find stories of locals at work. 

And they were at work at Rockport Harbor by 6:45 a.m., on a warm May morning: Lobstermen were loading bait onto their boats, Rockport Marine was launching sailboats, and up the hill, a new hotel was under construction. 

The piece on Rockport and Samuels will air at 8 a.m., Thursday, May 27, after she was to take the production crew aboard her boat, Must Be Nice, into Penobscot Bay so they could film trap hauling. 

After all that, Samuels was to treat the crew to lobster rolls in Belfast, at her Must Be Nice Lobster Shack, on Belfast Harbor.

Producer Chris Godburn pursued Samuels as the subject of the Maine Rise and Shine segment after reading news coverage of the Rockport entrepreneur and viewing her 2016 mini documentary.

Good Morning America’s reporter, Will Reeve, was setting up his welcoming words from the State of Maine, before the camera. He was enjoying the series, especially because he was fulfilling a personal goal of visiting all 50 states before he turned 30 in a few weeks. The show would be taking him to Oregon next; last week, it was Tennessee and Dollywood, where he got to talk with Dolly Parton.

Reeve liked the Rise and Shine project, especially the, “improvisation on a large scale,” with the different tech crews and people to interview.

Technician Rob Massey, who is based in Boston, was comfortable moving around the harbor front, setting up equipment and interacting with the regular morning traffic of people and dogs. He knows the lobstering life; his wife’s father fishes out of Gouldsboro.

Meanwhile, Samuels was mulling over where to take the filmmakers; either to check her traps down along the Rockport shore, or up toward Camden. The wind was due to pick up out of the southwest and the water could get choppy. She decided to see what it would like after getting past the monument, at the entrance to Rockport Harbor.

In any event, the day was going to be fun with Good Morning America.