Bream: Which Fish It Means, Bluegill, Sea Bream, Eating

Bream is a common name, not a species. Wikipedia describes it as a name for freshwater fish from several genera, including Abramis, and stresses that sharing the name does not mean the fish are related. What they share is shape: they tend to be narrow, deep-bodied fish. The word comes from Middle English breme, of Old French origin. Which fish someone means depends on where they live:

• Britain and Europe: the common bream, Abramis brama.
• The American South: bluegill and other Lepomis sunfish.
• In seafood: sea bream, meaning porgies of the family Sparidae such as the gilt-head bream and black seabream (Wikipedia).

The common bream, Abramis brama, belongs to the family Leuciscidae (Wikipedia). It is usually 30 to 55 cm long and 2 to 4 kg, with a maximum recorded length of 90 cm and weight over 9 kg; the European record is 10.32 kg. It lives in Europe north of the Alps and Pyrenees, east to the Caspian, Black and Aral Seas.

How to recognise it: a flattened, high-backed body, bright silver when young and bronze in older fish, and a slightly underslung mouth for feeding on the bottom (Wikipedia). It favours nutrient-rich waters with muddy bottoms, feeding on midge larvae, worms and plankton. Anglers catch it on sweetcorn, maggots and boilies.

The usual confusion is with silver bream, Blicca bjoerkna. Wikipedia gives a scale count to separate them: common bream have 11 or more scale rows between the dorsal fin and the lateral line, silver bream fewer than 10.

In much of the American South, often yes, but bream covers more than bluegill. Florida FWC calls bream "a convenient, if vague, term" and includes bluegill, redear sunfish (shellcracker), spotted sunfish (stumpknocker), redbreast sunfish, warmouth and longear sunfish. All of them are sunfish in the genus Lepomis, not relatives of the European bream.

To tell the two most common apart, look at the ear flap: solid black on a bluegill, edged in red on a redear sunfish. A pumpkinseed has wavy blue lines on the cheek.

No. Tilapia is the common name for nearly a hundred species of cichlid fish (Wikipedia). US bream are sunfish in the genus Lepomis, and the European common bream belongs to the Leuciscidae. Three different families. Tilapia is also sometimes sold as "St. Peter's fish" (Wikipedia). Check the scientific name on the label if you are buying fish.

Florida FWC describes its bream as "tasty eats", and bluegill are classic panfish, usually fried whole or as small fillets; see the eating section of our bluegill page for contaminant notes. For European common bream, none of the sources we checked address eating quality. Wherever you fish, follow local fish-consumption advisories, which vary by water body.

Florida FWC's bream tips:

• Tackle: small #6 or #8 hooks with a split shot about 6 inches up the line.
• Where: shallow water, less than 6 feet deep.
• Bait: worms, crickets, grubs, sand maggots or grass shrimp; or a 1/8-oz beetle spin in white or chartreuse.
• Redear (shellcracker): they eat snails and clams but are caught most often on earthworms, best around the full moons of March and April.
• Spotted sunfish (stumpknocker): tiny 1/16-oz beetle spins tipped with freshwater clam meat, pitched near shoreline cover.
• Spawning: bluegill spawn through the summer on visible shallow nest beds; redear spawn earlier, peaking around spring full moons.

Lakes FWC names for bream include Lake Tarpon (Pinellas), Orange Lake (Alachua), Lake Istokpoga (Highlands), the Winter Haven Chain (Polk), Lake Panasoffkee (Sumter) and Tenoroc FMA (Polk). Check current Florida panfish limits before keeping fish.

If you are looking for the game fish: according to the Stardew Valley Wiki, bream is caught in the river in Pelican Town or Cindersap Forest, in every season and any weather, between 6pm and 2am. Its fishing difficulty is 35 and its base sell price is 45g, rising to 56g at silver, 67g at gold and 90g at iridium quality. It is used in Baked Fish and Maki Roll, counts toward the Night Fishing Bundle, and produces roe in a Fish Pond.

Research and drafting for this page were assisted by AI and checked line by line against the sources listed below. Every number names the organisation it comes from, and where sources disagree we say so instead of picking one silently. Prices and rules are given with the date we checked them; they change, so confirm before you rely on them. If you find an error, tell us and we will correct it.