Side-Aspect Target Strength Measurement of Swimbladdered Fish Using Multi-Frequencies System: Black Sea Bream (Acanthopagrus schlegeli)

Besides dorsal-aspect target strength (TS) of the fish, side-aspect TS information is also acoustically important parameter in fisheries acoustics. In this study, the side-aspect TS of 11 black sea bream (Acanthopagurus schlegeli) were measured using a split beam echosounder of 120, 200, and 420 kHz; total length of the fish ranged from 12.4 to 23.7 cm, and wet weight from 27.5 to 229.8g. For the precise TS measurement with side-aspect angle, we used anesthetized and tethered specimens of known size while being rotated through $360^{\circ}C$ by means of a carousel structure. The side-aspect TS measurements of the fish were conducted by rotating the fish in the horizontal plane at 50 interval. The ping interval was 0.2 second and elapsed time at each angle was 30-60 second. As a result, the measured side-aspect TS data were fitted by sinusoidal function. The relationships between fish length and near full side-aspect TS were as follows: $TS_{120kHz}= 21.46 log (TL)-67.5 (r = 0.70), \;TS_{200 kHz}= 31.03 log (TL)-76.9 (r=0.83),\;TS_{420 kHz}= 30.79 log (TL)-72.2 (r = 0.77)$. For comparison, theoretically estimated side-aspect TS from the Kirchhoff ray mode (KRM) model, which based on swimbladder and body morphology, were compared with the measured TS.