The common bream's home range is Europe north of the Alps and Pyrenees, as well as the Balkans.

The common bream generally lives in rivers (especially in the lower reaches) and in nutrient-rich lakes and ponds with muddy bottoms and plenty of algae.

The fish's protractile mouth helps it dig for chironomid larvae, Tubifex worms, bivalves, and gastropods.

In very turbid waters, common bream can occur in large numbers, which may result in a shortage of bottom-living prey such as chironomids.

The bream are then forced to live by filter feeding with their gill rakers, Daphnia water fleas being the main prey.

[citation needed] The fry hatch after three to 12 days and attach themselves to water plants with special adhesive glands, until their yolk is used up.

Because of their slender shape, the young fish are often not recognised as bream, but they can be identified by their flat bodies and silvery colour.

However, bream are not as hard fighting as most other fish native to the UK, as due to their flat, disc-shaped profile they are relatively easy to bring to the bank.