Bleak (Alburnus alburnus)
Current record: 4oz
Water: River Monnow, Monmouth
The bleak (Alburnus alburnus) is a small, silvery member of the carp family, found in rivers and lakes across much of Europe. The name comes from the Old Norse bleikr, meaning pale or shining, which is about as accurate a description as a fish name gets.
Most bleak run 5–10cm, though they can reach up to 25cm in good conditions. The body is flat and elongated, with a small, upturned mouth and a pointed head, built for picking food off the surface rather than the bottom. Fins are colourless and sharp-edged, and the anal fin is notably long, 18 to 23 rays, one of the easier ways to tell them apart from similar-looking young fish.
That's a genuinely useful skill to have, since juvenile bleak get mixed up with young bream, silver bream, roach, and ruffe fairly often. The upturned mouth gives it away even at a small size, and roach and ruffe both have deeper bodies and shorter anal fins by comparison.
Bleak school in large numbers near the surface, feeding on plankton and small invertebrates, and that abundance makes them a reliable food source for pike, perch, and other predators. It also makes them a good introduction to fishing: light tackle, small baits, and a near-guaranteed bite, ideal for a beginner still learning to strike.
They tolerate a wide range of water conditions, from clear rivers to slightly turbid lakes and slow-flowing water, and aren't a species anyone worries about conservation-wise. Their real value is quieter than that: keep the water healthy enough to support a bleak population, and you've usually got a healthy river.