Help me figure out what boat to buy

[ratfusion]

Originally Posted by Natural Light Kid

i can offer a little experience in this department. i have a 16' flat bottom with a 25 h.p. suzuki. i also have a 19' bay boat with a 150h.p. i love my bayboat, but if i had to choose one, the bayboat's gone. i can fish big lake in the aluminum boat, i just have to pick my days more carefully. there are days that i can fish big lake with the bayboat that i wouldn't with the flat bottom, but they are few and far between. if i didn't have the bayboat, i would just fish elsewhere on those days or cut grass. in my opinion, if i had to have one, the flat bottom is much more versatile. it is nice to have both. however, with 2 kids, a wife, and career it is sometimes hard to justify both (time?). there's my $.02.

Thats all great info thanks! We've got no kids yet, so it'd be mostly her and myself. I'm looking at bay boats to take friends out on the weekends. I'm leaning a lot towards an aluminum boat first.