Large well conditioned BG produce at much higher rates and are more successful at reproduction up through early yoy stage than average BG.
To be sure BG with good RW tend to be the spawners and condition will be reflected in egg counts and effective defense of nests on an individual fish/nest basis. But I fail to see any evidence that populations of larger BG produce more offspring than populations of smaller BG. Time and again, the key factor as to whether BG grow to large sizes is how many BG there are. If taking larger BG reduced fry production, then we would see a shift to larger BG sizes as a consequence of that. Yet we don't. It turns out that after the big BG are taken, there is more reproduction and the BG of subsequent generations do not get as large. There is no evidence supporting the proposition that BG reproduction is adversely affected overall (for the BOW) or that BG populations do not swiftly recover harvested biomass. All evidence suggests that reproduction is too high to support the previous BG growth rates over time.
What happens after that is a function of pond productivity , population dynamics (numbers and size of all species) and a lot of other factors.
Right, what happens after free swimming is very important as to the number of fry that develop to the 2" sizes and larger. While LMB play a role here, the dominate forces shaping survival is intra-species competition and cannibalism of the very young free swimming fry. A single pair in a forage pond can produce as many 1" to 3" offspring in a season as a 1 acre pond can with 200 equivalent pairs.
