From fisheries to scientific data: A protocol to process information from fishers’ echo-sounder buoys

•The study establishes a protocol for cleaning data from fishers' echo-sounders buoys prior to their use for scientific ends.•The use of the proposed protocol eliminates errors of these novel data.•The main advantages and limitations of acoustic data provided by fishers' echo-sounder buoys are analyzed and discussed.•This paper provides the first step towards the use of fishers' echo sounder buoys for scientific research.