Bleak

Quick facts

How to identify it

A slender, laterally flattened fish with a sharply upturned, terminal mouth, a large eye and a straight, keeled belly. The back is blue-green to olive, the flanks and belly brilliant silver with a mirror sheen, and the scales are thin and shed at a touch. The anal fin is long — clearly longer than the dorsal, which sits well back over it — and all fins are colourless to pale grey. Small roach and white bream are deeper-bodied with red or grey fins; the schneider (spirlin) has a dark lateral band and prefers faster water; young asp are bleak-shaped but grow much bigger and have a tougher, larger mouth.

Where it lives

Bleak live in the upper water layer of slow to moderate rivers, canals, lakes and reservoirs, and tolerate brackish estuaries. Shoals hang just under the surface in open water, along steep banks, harbour walls, pontoons and bridges, and in the slack water below weirs, where drifting insects collect. In summer they gather in enormous numbers in the top metre of warm, calm water; in winter the shoals sink to deeper, slower water and become far less visible. They avoid cold, fast, stony rivers, though they run into the lower ends of most tributaries.

Season and behaviour

Bleak spawn in May–June, in several batches, on shallow gravel and stones or on plants near the bank when water reaches 15 °C or more; spawning shoals draw perch, asp and zander in for an easy meal. From April to October they feed at the surface all day, taking floating insects, zooplankton and anything drifting by, with a peak in calm, warm evenings when insect hatches are heavy. Bleak feed in bright sunlight when other fish have stopped, which makes them the reliable summer species. In late autumn they move down and are best caught deeper on light float tackle; in winter they are hard to find.

Fishing methods

A short pole or whip of 3–5 m with a tiny float, a single no. 8 shot and a size 18–22 hook set 20–50 cm deep is the speed-fishing standard: feed a pinch of loose maggots or fine groundbait every cast to hold the shoal on the surface, and lift the moment the float twitches. A light match rod with a waggler works from steeper banks and at range, and a small dry fly or a tiny nymph on a fly rod takes bleak one after another on summer evenings. For catching bait quickly, a slow-sinking cloud of groundbait pulls the shoal to your feet. Bleak are delicate, so use an unhooking mat or a bait bucket with an aerator if they are to be kept alive.

Baits and lures

Bleak take almost anything small: a single white maggot or pinkie is the classic, followed by casters, a fragment of bread flake, a small piece of worm, a bloodworm or a soft artificial maggot. Groundbait should be light, fine and cloudy — a surface "cloud" mix that keeps the shoal high and competing. On the fly, small dry flies, midge and mayfly patterns, and tiny nymphs all work. As bait for predators, bleak are used whole and fresh, dead or alive where permitted; they die quickly in a bucket, so change the water often.

Tips from the bank

1. 01Set the bait shallow — 20–50 cm — and feed a small pinch every cast to keep the shoal competing at the surface.
2. 02Use the smallest hook you own (size 20–22) and a light hooklink; bleak have tiny mouths and shed thin scales easily.
3. 03Strike on the twitch, not the sink — a bleak spits the bait in a fraction of a second.
4. 04Fish the calm, warm hour before dark in summer when insect hatches bring the whole shoal to the top.
5. 05Look for shoals under bridges, along harbour walls and in the slack below weirs where drifting food collects.
6. 06For live bait, aerate the bucket and change water often; for dead bait, chill fresh bleak immediately — they spoil fast.
7. 07If bleak bites die suddenly, a perch, asp or zander is under the shoal — switch to a lure or live bait on the spot.

Where to catch Bleak

Waters where Shoalmap's fishing reports list Bleak.

• Ludaško jezero
• Lekma
• Lekma

Related species

• Roach
  Rutilus rutilus

  The silver shoal fish that keeps float anglers busy all year round.

• White bream
  Blicca bjoerkna

  The small, silver cousin of the bream that fills keepnets on slow rivers and canals.

• Rudd
  Scardinius erythrophthalmus

  The golden, red-finned surface feeder of weedy lakes and summer evenings.

• Zander
  Sander lucioperca

  The low-light hunter of deep, murky rivers and reservoirs.

Frequently asked questions