Multi-beam fishery sonar is an important tool for efficient, accurate and selective fishing in marine fisheries. In this paper, in order to systematically analyze the detection performance of multi-beam fishery sonar and the influence of main constraints on the operating range, for the multi-beam fishery sonar based on cylindrical array, the detection performance of the fishery sonar in noise and reverberation environments is analyzed with the method of underwater acoustic system simulation, the detection performance of fish school with different noise intensity under different sea conditions is compared, the abilities of narrowband system and broadband system to reduce reverberation are analyzed, and the detection performance of the fishery sonar in the mixed environment of noise and reverberation is simulated and analyzed. Finally, from the aspects of system design, transmitting mode, receiving mode and so on, the methods to improve the detection performance of the fishery sonar are put forward, which provides an improvement direction for the development of long-distance, high-resolution multi-beam fishery sonar.