Abramis brama · Also called Common bream, Bronze bream, Skimmer (small bream)
Big shoals, big weights. Bream are deep-bodied bottom-feeders that can fill a net when you find them.
🏆 British record: 22 lb 11 oz (10.291 kg), Ferry Lagoon, Cambridgeshire (2012)
Deep, flat-sided body with a high back, long bottom (anal) fin and a mouth that extends into a tube to suck food from the bottom. Big bream are bronze with grey-black fins; small ones, called skimmers, are silvery.
Silver bream look similar but are smaller, with bigger eyes and pinky-red bases to the lower fins.
Big lakes, reservoirs, gravel pits, wide slow rivers and canals.
Bream move around in large shoals, usually in open, deeper water over soft, silty bottoms. Watch for patches of bubbles and for bream 'rolling' at the surface at dusk.
Bream grub along the bottom in shoals for bloodworm, snails and worms, stirring up clouds of mud. When a shoal settles on your bait you can catch several in quick succession.
They feed best at dusk, through the night and on dull days.
Best time: Summer and autumn. Dusk and into dark, and overcast, breezy days.
Worms
Chopped worm in the groundbait.
Maggots and casters
Sweetcorn
Bread punch
Pellets
Lakes and wide rivers
Start by casting a few full feeders of groundbait with chopped worm and casters to the same spot. Then cast every few minutes. Bream bites are slow, steady pulls on the tip. Wait for the tip to pull right round.
Canals and smaller lakes
Fish slightly over-depth so the bait lies on the bottom. Bream bites often lift the float rather than pull it under.
Bream are slimy and heavy for their size. Use a landing net, support their weight with both hands and don't hold them up by the tail.
📜 Rules and seasons
On rivers, streams and drains in England and Wales there's a close season for coarse fish from 15 March to 15 June. Most lakes, ponds and canals are open all year, but check the water's own rules.
Check the official rules on gov.ukVideos open on YouTube. We don't make them, but we think they're good.
