The body-shape of the bream gives some clue to its habits. Not only does it shape allow for life at the bottom and to easily manoevere between closely-spaced reeds and stems in the stillwater.This increases the feeding habitat and lets the fish hide from many predators.

 Bream may travel around in shoals of up to 50 fish, feeding mainly on algae, plankton, insect larvae and molluscs. Bream move slowly along the bottom rather like a flock of sheep across a meadow denuding plants. Bream also tend to stir up the mud at the bottom when feeding which releases gas, causing bubbles to rise to the surface so it is invaluable to locate streams of bubbles to locate feeding fish. Twilight and dusk are good times to seek bream as they use this time for feding in shallow marginal waters.

The most effective hookbait is a medium sized redworm tipped with a maggot or a caster. The groundbait should always be at least 50 % plain brown breadcrumbs, mixed with chopped up worms and some casters. Bream love sweet flavours so try adding liquid molasses to your groundbait. When you hook a fish, steer it away from the shoal so as not to spook the others, if you lose one pray because often one lost fish will scare all the others away.