Bream is a tasty and healthy fish that is popular not only among fishermen, but also consumers. If desired, there is the opportunity to engage in the cultivation and rearing of fish in your own pond. Fishing for bream is considered an exciting activity, because during fishing silence is required, which adds more intrigue to the process itself.
Description, features and distribution of fish
Bream, like some other representatives of cyprinids, have a rather compressed body. Visually, they are easily recognized by the height of the body, equal to about 1/3 of the entire length. Due to the high, narrow dorsal fin, the fish seems even larger than it actually is. The bream has an asymmetrical caudal fin - its upper lobe is slightly smaller and shorter than the lower.
The 30-ray anal fin is used as a keel, adding stability to the fish. The bream has a small head, small eyes, a shallow retractable mouth. The surface of the body is covered with small scales; in the back, it is absent.
With age, the color of bream changes. Young individuals are characterized by a gray color with silver tint. With the passage of life, the color becomes darker, making the fish brown or blackish with a characteristic yellow-golden tint of color. Fins range from light gray to red-bloody shades.
Fish live in the entire northern hemisphere of the Earth. In Russia, breams are especially common in the northwestern and central parts, rivers, lakes of Siberia, the Urals, the basins of all the seas that wash the country.
Depending on the region of distribution, there are local names for fish: Eastern, Danube, Baltic bream, scavenger.
Population and species status
The total number of representatives of the genus of bream, which belong to the family of cyprinids and the order of cyprinids, varies significantly in various natural reservoirs. It directly depends on the success of annual breeding.
Under favorable conditions, for spawning of semi-aisle breams, a high flood is ensured. After regulating the flow of river waters of the southern seas, the total number of sites for spawning significantly decreased. In order to effectively preserve the main stocks, we created several special growing fish farms. They also carry out activities aimed at saving young bream from shallow ponds in case of loss of connection with rivers.
To ensure the most successful spawning process in natural and artificial reservoirs, special floating spawning sites help. In addition, the epidemic of various fish diseases negatively affects the numbers of bream in some water bodies.
Nature and lifestyle
The bream is considered to be schooling fish, preferring to stay in deep places with a lot of vegetation, serving as food for it. Bream is a careful and smart fish. Sometimes they gather in large flocks, which is typical for places where a large population of bream (reservoirs, large lakes). For the winter, breams lie in deep holes. Lower Volga bream populations often winter in the Caspian Sea or stay at the mouth of the Volga.
At the age of 3-4 years, the bream reaches puberty. Spawns on shallows with a lot of grass or in shallow bays. At this time, it behaves noisily, actively, playfully.
What does the bream eat?
The usual diet, all that the bream eats, directly depends on local characteristics and the way of eating. The fish has a small mouth opening, due to which it can feed on small crustaceans, bloodworms, algae shoots, and insect larvae.
The bream draws food through the lips out of the ground, while leaning with the whole body down to the bottom. In the south, the food is based on numerous crustaceans that inhabit the brackish waters of the Azov and Caspian seas. They feed on bream and caviar of other fish, excrement of domestic animals in places of their watering.
Breeding
The bream begins to spawn for 3-4 years of life, laying eggs in shallow water, which is overgrown with aquatic vegetation. The spawning process begins at a time when the water temperature reaches 12-15 degrees. In northern and central Russia, this is mid-May. Fishermen determine the exact breeding time of the bream by willow: when the leaves bloom.
One female is able to spawn up to 340,000 eggs. Larvae appear on average after 5 days. During spawning, the bream is almost impossible to catch, but after breeding it actively bites, does not get sick.
Bream is a fast-growing fish, which by the age of 10 is 70-75 centimeters in length and weight up to 8 kilograms. Fish growth rates may vary depending on habitat and nutritional conditions.
Bream that live in the southern latitudes grow much faster. For example, individuals found in the lakes of the Republic of Karelia reach an average length of 24 centimeters by the age of 5, while fish living in the Volga basin can grow up to 30-34 centimeters in length. This is a significant difference.
On the "fish hunt" fishermen are more likely to meet scavengers and individuals weighing up to 2 kilograms. Bream with a body weight of more than 4 kilograms is considered a rare prey, due to which they are valued.
Enemies and Competition
Compared to many other representatives of cyprinids, breams grow quickly and are actively developing. Such developmental abilities give fish many advantages in the struggle for survival and competition:
- Due to the rapid growth of bream, they avoid the most dangerous and difficult period for them, when their small size attracts many predators, turning them into affordable and easy prey.
- The high growth rate of fish helps it by the age of 2-3 years to completely get out of the natural "pressure" of many predators. But at the same time, all the same, the main enemies remain, which include the large bottom pike, which is dangerous even for adult fish.
- All kinds of parasites, including the tapeworm ligula, which has a complex development cycle, also pose a danger to fish. Helminth eggs enter the water of the reservoir with the excrement of some fish-eating birds, and the hatched larvae are swallowed by many planktonic crustaceans that feed on the bream. From the intestinal tract of fish, larvae easily penetrate into the body cavity, where they grow actively and can lead to death.
- In summer, other natural enemies appear in bream. In warm waters, fish are often able to get sick or be affected by tapeworm and severe fungal disease of the gills - bronchicemiasis. It is sick breams that do not show any resistance that adult pike and large gulls, as a rule, eat.
Fishing value
Fishing for bream in coastal areas is small. It is carried out in spring and autumn by mechanized fishing links using passive fishing gear, including secrets and fixed nets. In the autumn period, slip nets are also used.
The fishing rules today provide for a more rational commercial use of the main bream population, which is represented by the reduction of the forbidden estuarine space, the expansion of coastal fishing in the marine zone, the limitation of the use of secrets and vents from early March to April 20.
Also in river zones, the terms of fishing for bream in the outpost are officially extended, starting from April 20 to May 20. The measures taken helped, in a sense, increase the intensity of fishing activities and increase the catch volumes of river and semi-migratory fish, including bream.
Catching bream
Going fishing, the angler must be aware of where and when to bream, which bait and top dressing. It is also equally important to know about the fishing technique, as there are several ways to hook the fish.
Time and place
Biting of bream deteriorates exclusively in the summer, especially in July. In the middle or at the end of August, fish biting begins to resume, continuing until mid-October under favorable weather conditions.
In the spring, the bream actively pecks after breeding, especially when there is a zhor of fish, contributing to better conditions for fishing. Bream is caught both during the day and in the dark. At night, the fish can come close to the shore, and in the daytime it tries to hide again in the pits.
For better fishing, fishermen are looking for promising places. To determine such a territory, it is important to know the habits of the fish. If during the day, especially in hot weather, the bream lies at depth, then at night it rises from the depth and goes to the shallows in search of food. When day fishing, the use of gear with long throw is recommended. At night, bream wait closer to the shore.
It is important to remember that the bream does not like the noise on the shore, because after hearing it, he will not come close to the bait. Respect for complete silence is a guarantee of successful fishing and a good catch.
Fishing methods
There are several main directions for catching bream: bottom and float fishing. Fishing of bream in such ways is carried out throughout the year, including the permissible fishing from ice, picking up only a fishing rod of a certain type and size. Float rigs are mounted on fly, bologna and match rods. Bottom fishing occurs when rigging spinning rods with special methods, using classic bottom gear in the form of a donkey-gum or a seine.
Bream is caught both from the shore and from the boat. A bream is a cautious fish, which is why a fisherman has to use delicate gear using diameter-limiting woods, which makes special requirements for equipping fishing rods with reels with fine-tuning the friction clutch and using shock absorbers in the form of a feedergam on gears.
In the summer, bream are caught from the shore in complete silence, without unnecessary movements and conversations. Approaches to places of fishing from a boat are carried out only at low speed and against the current. Even if the fisherman is extremely careful and accurate, in the place of fishing after the location and installation of gear the bream will start to peck no earlier than an hour later.
Lures and bait
Professional fishermen use a variety of lures, various tackle, based on the season, the characteristics of the reservoir and feed for bream fishing.
The most common are the following:
- combined options, “Sandwiches” (barley with maggot, corn with a worm, etc.);
- vegetable lures (pea mastic, pearl barley, potato, corn, semolina);
- animal lures (maggot, bloodworm).
Practice shows that in the spring, the most effective use of plant and combined lures. In summer, it is preferable to fish using animal food. In autumn and winter, experienced fishers experiment with feed, because in these seasons the fish are overly careful, weak nibble.
For fishing use float and bottom fishing rods with various hooks, fishing line of different thicknesses, an additional tool.
Breeding and growing
Due to the fact that the basis of the diet of bream is freshwater benthos, it is most advisable to engage in fish farming in shallow ponds or lakes with a muddy bottom or abundant underwater vegetation.
Often bream bred in polyculture with carp. Moreover, carp is the main species that gives more salable fish, and bream is auxiliary. The total fish productivity of a polyculture is always significantly higher than the productivity of bream breeding separately. The reason lies in the fact that when joint breeding, common carp and bream use the feed base much more fully.
The exact productivity is highly dependent on the reservoir itself. Due to the breeding of this fish without artificial feeding, the rate of gain in live weight is determined by the density of planting and the amount of natural food supply, as well as its ability to independently recover during the season.
Juveniles are obtained using small spawning ponds, into which bream are allowed only for the duration of breeding. The average bream producer weighs about 750 grams, its length is a little more than 30 centimeters. Spawning ponds should be pits with soft meadow vegetation. Ponds are filled with water a few days before spawning. After the end of spawning, bream-producers are caught from the spawning grounds and sent to ordinary fallopian ponds.
After the young hatch from the eggs, it remains in the pond until it gains weight up to 2-3 grams. Then they discharge water from the pond together with the young animals into the main feeding pond, in which constant monitoring of the food supply should be conducted. If necessary, feeding ponds are fertilized. For 3-4 years, bream acquires marketable mass, after which it is caught. The average survival of bream does not exceed 10%.
What kind of fish can be confused with?
Adult bream differs significantly from other related species (silver bream, bluebird, sop) with its high body. A species similar to it does not exist. Often, fishermen confuse bream with bream, especially if the individual is young or small. The difference between the silver bream and the scavenger, with a general visual similarity, lies in the color of the fins. The scavenger is much darker. Also, the shape of the body varies in these species: in the scavenger it is rounded, in the buster it is more elongated.
The main distinguishing feature of the bream is the caudal fin, in which the lower part is much longer and larger than the upper.
Sopa and Sintz have a bright, elongated body. Sinets has an iridescent blue-green hue. The white-eye has a completely light color, only the back is darker. Its anal fin is longer than that of a bream.
Health hazards
Bream is a product that has no contraindications. Only some people have individual intolerance to freshwater fish, including bream. The following factors can become a danger to human health:
- Omnivorous fish. The bream is an omnivorous fish, therefore, if the reservoir in which it lives is highly polluted, harmful substances will certainly be in the fish. To protect yourself from this problem will help only confidence that the fish was caught in a clean reservoir.
- Small bones. Small fish bones more than once became the consequence of a fatal outcome. Eating bream is required carefully so as not to accidentally choke on the bones. Or it is recommended that you pre-marinate the fish meat before cooking. It is undesirable to feed the bream of young children.
- Parasites. The bream is often affected by parasites, which is easily detected during cleaning. The presence of a wide ribbon in the innards of a bream is a rare occurrence. Such fish should not be eaten even when cooked. Immediately boil the knife and carefully process the cutting board with soap.
Ribbon eggs are very small and tenacious. If it is a pity to throw away the fish, it is prepared very carefully, after a good gutting and washing. More often in the insides of the bream there is another parasite - Ligulidae, which is not dangerous to human health.
The bream is a valuable river and lake fish, which is used for cooking in any form. The bream has distinctive characteristics, due to which it can not be confused with other species of fish. Fish meat is tasty, tender and nutritious, for which fish is valued.
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Ukraine. City: Kryvyi Rih
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