Conditions for precise measurement of in situ fish target strength (TS) are empirically studied and two indexes are introduced for this purpose. One is the number of fish in the effective reverberation volume which contributes echo formation at a certain instant and the other is the percentage of the multiple echoes which is derived from a residual of the single echo extraction. With the decrease of both indexes measured target strength approach a certain asymptotic value which is admitted as reliable from the past study. This shows the existence of some threshold values and below these threshold values TS measurement will be successful. The effectiveness of both indexes is confirmed by the data set obtained from one large same fish school in the eastern shelf of Bering sea during the intership calibration between Japanese and U.S. vessels on 15 and 16 August 1991.
Published in J.Mar.Acoust.Soc.