Estimates of relative egg deposition and larval abundance suggest that events occurring between spawning and the first 1–2 months after hatching play a major role in determining recruitment success of bloater Coregonus hoyi in Lake Michigan. Although relative egg deposition in 1983 was only 57% of that in 1982, larval recruitment was 2.4 times greater in 1983. We investigated mechanisms governing survival of larval bloaters by comparing characteristics of individual “survivors” through the first 1–2 months of life with those of larvae at earlier life history stages. Otolith analysis was used to identify stress periods and to determine ages, first-feeding dates (close correlates of birthdate), and average growth rates of individual bloater larvae from hatching to nearly 2 months of age in 1982 and 1983. Differences between the observed distribution of first-feeding dates for newly hatched larvae and the expected distribution predicted from egg deposition showed that eggs spawned early experienced higher mortality during the incubation period than did eggs spawned later. Eggs spawned early took about 2.5 weeks longer to develop than eggs spawned later because they incubated at cooler temperatures; this prolonged exposure to mortality sources may account for the observed difference in survival. Differences between the distributions of first-feeding dates for newly hatched larvae and larvae about 1 month old also suggested that early hatching larvae experienced higher initial mortality than late-hatching larvae. Starvation was not an important cause of mortality; growth rates of all larvae collected in the field were as high as or higher than those of larvae reared in the laboratory and fed ad libitum. Larvae hatching early in the season, however, grew only about half as fast during their first 3 weeks as larvae hatched later. These early hatching, slower growing larvae were also more likely to exhibit stress marks in the otolith ring pattern during their first 2 weeks, marks that were similar to those caused in the laboratory by short periods of starvation or low ration. Lower growth rates and higher frequency of stress marks for larvae during the period of higher relative mortality suggest that size or growth-rate-dependent mortality (e.g., predation) during the first few weeks of life may be an important mechanism affecting bloater recruitment.