Ray’s Bream

Family Bramidae

• Portuguese: Chaputa, Freira
• Spanish: Palometa, Japuta
• French: Castagnole
• Dutch: Braam
• German: Braschsenmakrele
• Swedish: Rays havbrax
• Norwegian: Havbrasme
• Danish: Havbrasen
• Icelandic: Brámafiskur

REMARKS Maximum length over 70 cm (but the experts disagree). A solitary fish of engaging appearance. The back is dark, usually brown or bluish or greenish-brown and the sides silvery.

This species is common in the deep waters off the Spanish coasts and spreads northwards in the spring and summer. The extent of this migration varies. In some years Ray’s bream is almost common in northern European waters. It seems also to be present on the American side of the Atlantic; although to judge by the literature, for example Breder’s reference (in the Field Book of Marine Fishes of the Atlantic Coast, 1929) to a single specimen caught at a place called No Man’s Land in Massachusetts and measuring only 6 inches, the presence is discreet. Its ‘official’ common name in the U.S.A. is pomfret; but this nomenclature seems to rest on Bermudan usage in the nineteenth century.