Side-aspect target strength of Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar), brown trout (Salmo trutta), whitefish (Coregonus lavaretus), and pike (Esox lucius)

¹ University of Jyväskylä, Department of Biological and Environmental Science, P.O. Box 35, FIN-40351 Jyväskylä, Finland
² Finnish Game and Fisheries Research Institute, Saimaa Fisheries Research and Aquaculture, FIN-58175 Enonkoski, Finland

Accepted: 13 June 2000

Abstract

The side-aspect acoustic target strengths (TS) of 19 Atlantic salmons (Salmo salar), 16 brown trouts (Salmo trutta), 10 whitefish (Coregonus lavaretus) and 9 pikes (Esox lucius) were measured using a 200 kHz split-beam echosounder, in order to study the relationship between TS and fish size indices (length, weight and side area). The effect of side aspect angle on TS was also studied. Linear models between TS and the logarithm of the fish size indices were fitted with length being best for predicting TS. Typically, the standard error of estimate was 1.2–2.9 dB. The side-aspect TS measurements with specimens of known size showed that the linear relationship between full side-aspect TS and the logarithm of fish length for salmonid (Salmo salar + Salmo trutta) was on average 4.7 dB (SE = 0.7), lower than for whitefish and pike combined. The effect of side aspect angle on TS was modelled with cos³ (2α function. The differences in the TS between full side aspect and head/tail aspect were 17.4, 19.0 and 19.6 dB for salmonid, whitefish, and pike, respectively.