Fish schools can be insonified simultaneously with multifrequency echosounders (e.g. Simrad EK60s) and a multibeam echosounder (e.g. Simrad ME70). This paper presents a method for combining these data to improve estimates of the relative frequency response r(f) of fish schools. Values of r(f) are now commonly used to classify echoes in fishery surveys. The data from the roll- and pitch-stabilized, high-resolution ME70 are used to correct beam-width effects in the multifrequency EK60 data. First, knowing the exact position and orientation of the transducers and the position of the vessel, the echoes are placed into a common geographic coordinate system. Then, the EK60 data are rejected if they do not include a significant percentage of the fish school... |