It largely lives in the sea but makes an annual migration up-river each year to breed.

The colouring becomes more vivid in the breeding season and males may have the operculum, base of the fins and the belly turn orange.

[3] Vimba breams move in small shoals along the sea coast, feeding on invertebrates which they pick from the seabed, and the eggs of other fish.

They leave the sea in May or June, swimming upriver to spawn in fast-moving tributaries with stony or gravelly bases and little vegetation.

The males prepares several areas of riverbed on which the females deposit batches of eggs.