Description
A bottom fish of lakes and slow rivers, lives in shoals.
How to identify it
Very deep, compressed body, protrusible mouth pointing downwards, long anal fin.
Appearance
The body is very deep and flattened at the sides, with an arched back and a head that is small for its bulk. The mouth, pointing slightly downwards, extends into a tube to probe the bottom. Young fish are silvery and slim, adults take on bronze or golden tones, stronger in clear water. The fins are dark grey or black, never reddish: a good way to tell it from the silver bream, which also has a larger eye and fewer rows of scales above the lateral line. It is covered in abundant slime.
Habitat and habits
It lives in lakes, ponds, reservoirs, canals and slow rivers, especially in the lower stretches, and also adapts to brackish water. It favours nutrient-rich water with a muddy or clay bed, where it digs for bloodworm, worms and molluscs. It moves in shoals close to the bottom, by day in deep water and far from the bank; at night it comes close to the shore. In very turbid, overcrowded water it filters plankton and grows little. It spawns between April and June on plants and in reeds.
Related species and forms
Blue bream
Ballerus ballerus
Cyprinid resembling a slender bream, in German Zope (Spitzpleinzen), of large lowland rivers and eutrophic lakes.
White-eye bream
Ballerus sapa
Cyprinid of slow rivers and large watercourses, in German Zobel (Scheibpleinzen), known in English as the white-eye bream.
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This species' bite index, recommended baits and methods, and the rules of the day for every water. Offline too.
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