Favorites For Bass

And somebody please tell me how to upload pics here... I cant even use an avatar...HELP PLEASE

Where will you be fishin? Or what area?

I would recommend 3 and 4 inch tube jigs.  I use these from spring through fall and have great success.  My favorite color is pumpkin.  It's obviously pumpkin colored with little black dots on it.  It looks just like a crayfish swimming through the water.  I rig them weedless and usually use as little weight as possible unless the bass are holding in deeper water.  Give it a shot.  In general I think any soft plastic used correctly will produce bass but the tube jigs are my number one choice.

your most consistant shore action will come from fishing rivers and streams for smallies.  in PA almost all moving water, not polluted, will have smallies in them.  for gear a medium power, med/fast to fast actrion rod with a 200 or 300 sized reel wiil do nicely.  the 10 lb pline is good, others like fusion or braid or straight mono, that's a personal thing.  as for lures soft plastics are king, grubs, tubes, worms, minnows are will all work.  as for color grean pumpkin is probably the most consiostant but at times other colors work better so have a variety of dark, light and bright colors, to start black, white, chartreus, watermelon, smoke.  also stickbaits can be very productive.  i use rapala a lot.  i also like some yozuri stuff like pin minnow and glass minows, many other people like the lucky craft bandits and pointers.  the rebel craw is a must as are tiny torpedos, zara puppy, pop r, spinner baits and buzzbaits.
 
that should get you started.  oh and also check out http://forums.riversmallies.com/forums/ great smallie forum.

The hotspots are everywhere. Until the grass over takes the bay in the summer, you can catch bass anywhere you walk out. Wade until about knee to waste deep and you'll catch fish.

Presque Isle is one of the best bass fisheries on the planet. They don't get as big as down south, but you can catch a bunch of 1-2 pounders. Spring time you can catch smallies wading off of Perry's Monument on any kind of jigs or tubes.
 
Here's an average spring smallie for the bay...

 

Giant Poppers and Gurglers. All black, tied on # 2 to 1/0. "WHAM" !!!
 

Salty,
 Your killing me with all the questions! Stop by the shop first week in May a couple angler friends and my self are going to crush the IGFA small mouth bass line class records and your invited.
 
Andy

Shutup,
Never fished cony hear tell it's good, however I believe French creek between Wattsburgh and the Union city dam holds the biggest inland small mouth in the state. Put in just before the rt. 8-89 split and pull out at the dam, its a all day float but the bass fishing is second to none. And is fished by very few, reason being no access to most parts of that creek and heavy brush along the banks.
 
Andy

Do not underestimate the spinnerbait, a big oklahoma or colorado blade has proven sucessfull for me year after year, youll even grab a pike if they are laying around.  Booyah just came out with a new boogie bait.  I am growing very fond of this bait.  The hook is attached with a cable so the bass have a hard time throwing it.  The bass tend to love a simple minnow rap as well, regular perch or craw colors will crush any day. You can use your standard soft plastics or jigs for the weeds but i recoomend getting yourself a arbogast jitterbug for the weedy shallows, even on hard days this will produce a few on topwater.

Salty,
   One thing you can gather from all of these posts is that P.I Bay is full of bass and almost any variety of tackle will catch you fish.  Top water, spinners, jigs and tubes all work really well it just depends on the conditions like water clarity, how calm it is and how much weed has accumulated in the bay.  If your fishing from the shore you should concentrate on the head of the bay, the areas just east and west of water works, marina lake, perry's monument and the lagoons.  If I were you though and really wanted to catch some bass I would gather up about 700 bucks and go ask the greek how to catch em, youll end up with at least ten lures and I gurantee atleast one of them will work!

The most scenic river for smallmouth bass has to be the clarion river during a warm summer day, above cooksburgh. wade in the middle and cast towards the boulders and deep holes along the bank. the most scenic part are the college cuties in their string bikinis coasting down stream in a canoe. you can get the same effect canoing down the river casting towards those same boulders with tanned beauties basking on the flat rocks.
one mid-day of catching trout and smallmouth in the middle of the clarion a canoe came by and the kid inside gave me a bottle of beer. i was already out there for about 4 hours catching fish and he hands me a cold beer on his way down the river!!! now that's the life.. 
oh ya, rebel craws for the spinning guys, brown wooly buggers for the fly guys.

Largemouth-Texas rig with 4-6" worm or lizard, color depending upon conditions, farm ponds, or around the weedbeds and stumps on lakes
Smallmouth-Rapala minnies, anything that imitates a crawdad, or a medium sized crawdad itself fished on bottom, basically any small stream river.  Never fished the lake for either, I hear the smallmouth are gigantic in Erie however.