re: Caught a blue spotted bass today. Anyone else ever caught one?

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The real answer is that you had ice on the fish in that spot which caused him to turn blue at the spots where the ice hit his body in the ice chest.

Thank you your welcome for the official answer!

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If there were any other reports of this online that I could find, I might buy that answer, but ice on fish usually reduces coloration not enhances it.

I think its the bioaccumulation of a vitamin A deficiency from eating a lot of vitamin A deficient crawfish. Crawfish accumulate vitamin A through consumption of plant matter. In the winter when vegetation dies, they lose their vitamin A, becoming deficient, and as a result develop blue claws. The bass in question ate a bunch of these and is also now vitamin A deficient which manifests itself in blue skin.

When crawfish have lots of vitamin A in their system, they have red claws as commonly found in late summer/fall crawfish.

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Nice info. So that's why Black/blue is better in the winter-spring and black/red is better in the summer-fall.

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Yup. Here's a YouTube link talking about it.