Fish ahead! A new sonar tracking device detects fish by species and school size, covering as much as 230 square miles in an hour.

• Author: Grenn, Ben
• Position: Includes related article on other tracking sonar technology - Fish-tracking device SciFish

SciFish may look like something you'd see in a Star Trek show, but in reality this sonar fish-tracking device could revolutionize everything from fishing techniques to resource management.

A new sonar product can detect a 10-ton tuna school up to 15 miles from a fishing vessel, and has the capability to cover 230 square miles in one hour.

Sci-Fi? No, SciFish.

It sounds a bit like something out of a Jules Verne novel or a Gene Rodenberry made-for-TV movie. But it's not.

Scientific Fishery Systems Inc., better known as SciFish, is an Alaskan corporation born in 1993 out of one man's desire to develop technological solutions to some of the industry's most-pressing problems: reducing bycatch totals, creating sustainable fisheries, increasing global presence, improving assessment, and reducing risk to fishermen.

The Business is the Brainchild of Patrick Simpson, an Anchorage Dimond High graduate who learned first-hand about commercial fishing after moving to Cordova where he followed in his father's footsteps. There was just one problem.

"I would get seasick," recalls Simpson. "My brother, dad and I would make those six-day trips from Cordova to Bristol Bay and I would be the only one to get sick."

After a couple summers working on his father's boat, Simpson decided to focus his life on computer science and headed off to the University of California, San Diego. Following graduation in 1986, he returned to his native Anchorage in search of a job but found offerings shin due to a statewide depression. Simpson then moved to California where he "bounced around the defense industry" and became well-versed in sonar technology.

The sonar system he adapted for the fishing industry was generated from this experience with the military. "It was, like, one of those times when you're in the shower and a light goes on in your head," he recalled. "I thought 'Why not apply what I have been doing for the Defense Department to the fishing industry?'"

Simpson, the author of two books, Artificial Neural Systems and Computational Intelligence PC Tools, has patented a broad-band sonar system that not only holds promise of increasing fishermen's success, but also provides a better handle for resource managers to track the abundance of a particular fish stock for regulatory purposes.

"When you are born and raised in the fisheries, you grow to understand that it's an abundant resource, but we really need to be good custodians of that resource," he said. "I'm hoping this...