Ever since Issue 27 of Bits and Pieces, Fishpool has struggled to get the skimmer bream out of his or her mind. And having threatened as much, this time the bronze bream (Abramis brama) gets a well deserved mention.
This is a fish maligned by many anglers, so let us recap the negative aspects first.
Yes, they are pretty ugly.
Yes, they are slimy.
Yes, they stink. Quite badly.
Yes, they fight like W G Grace’s Mum with a stick of rhubarb in the corridor of uncertainty (or something…).
But….with balanced tackle (not barbel or carp gear) bream can be really good fun, especially in a river where they turn against the current and actually take a bit of landing. Catch one and it will likely have an awful lot of friends waiting to caught next, and then comes the best bit of all – the location. Bream thrive in beautiful places, big rivers like the Shannon or Thames, the lochs of the Borders, the Broads of Norfolk. By association alone, the bronze bream deserves to be championed. So there!