Thanks so much for the kind words from all of you. I only recently became aware of Pond Boss thanks to Dave Willis (the best fishery professor in the country for my money). I am impressed with the quality of information in the magazine and in this forum. Sorry for the confusion about the terminology for PSD. I do hope to prepare an article for PB explaining the relationship between structure (what you can see) and dynamics (rates of recruitment, growth and mortality). PSD is sensitive to changes in recruitment. When high recruitment lowers PSD it is an early warning to increase harvest of 8 to 12-inch bass.
Dave Davidson--in my experience small bass do not exert the most important effect on forage. They may consume numbers but not much weight. Female bluegill in a balanced population are in good condition and spawn repeatedly. High numbers of young recruit to age one. A high mortality of age-1 and 2 bluegill is needed to reduce density and maintain growth. It is rare to find a bass population with a surplus of 12 to 15-inch fish. The most common structure is low PSD of stunted bass. With selective harvest and educated catch and release, most fish of quality size (>12 inches) are caught repeatedly.
Jimbob--you made me happy to read about maintaining records on relative weight. It is not easy to get good data on lively fish. Look for trends in the data. Look for fish in good condition in the fall. You are right on to evaluate RW as a function of length. It is another measure of structure to help decide should I keep this fish or put it back.