High stocking or recruitment rates of juvenile fish can result in growth rate depression, so fisheries managers may need to consider a trade-off between producing large numbers or large sizes of fish. Analysis of food production, feeding, and bioenergetics of growth leads to a model for predicting such density-dependent growth depression. This model can be expressed as a simple hyperbolic equation whose parameters can be estimated from field data on maximum growth rates and growth depressions under controlled field conditions, If feeding rates are assumed proportional to the square of body length, the equation leads to a von Bertalanffy growth curve with only the asymptotic size varying with density, When all sizes of fish consume the same foods, the model predicts that increasing density will lead to parallel Ford–Walford plots with intercepts that are inversely proportional to density, A key complication regards partitioning of the food resource by small and large fish, which may lead to differential growth suppression (competitive asymmetry) among age- or size-classes. We predict that the differential suppression should lead to changes in the slopes of Walford plots with changes in density, and we suggest measuring these changes with simple field experiments involving factorial combinations of low and high densities of juvenile and larger fish. However, such experiments are unlikely to provide adequate parameter estimates for more detailed models that hypothesize allometric effects on both partitioning of food resources and metabolism in size-structured fish populations.