There have been many studies done on cg (compensatory growth) on various animals including fish. Very few are long term studies using extended periods of deprivation.
Short studies are various ages before adulthood show that many fish species with short period s of deprivation with show rapid cg given adequate nutrition. Such individuals will consume more food and retain more food (a higher FC ratio) for a period of time up to 2-3 months, nearly or almost nearly catching up with fish not so deprived. (I've read studies for this on tinfoils, catfish, tilapia, sturgeon, guppies, salmon, etc.)
The periods tested varied from a few days to a whole season. This mimics normal seasonal variations in food and is considered to be a natural biological adaptation to long term survival during periods of famine / drought, etc. A single season of deprivation is considered to be biologically 'normal' in many species, so cg would likely cover at least that amount of deprivation.
There were no studies that I found where deprivation was as long as a year. Additionally, most of the shorter studies did not track test individuals for even 1 season deprivations to full adult size. There are many who believe that long term size and health are permanently diminished if the deprivation is long enough and that cg will not fully compensate bone growth, organ growth, etc. Long term physiology (lipid retention, hormones, etc.) may not match control groups.
We'd hope that when we find 3 year old adult fish at 1/3-1/2 normal size, that large amounts of food would produce rapid growth rates. Unfortunately, that doesn't seem to be the case. So, somewhere between a season and 2 years of deprivation, there seems to be a permanent loss.
