Re: First Boat advice for fisherman?
I was just in the same position as you, bought the boat last Saturday. I ended up buying a 14 foot Duroboat (aluminum construction, similar to Lund or Smokercraft but manufactured 10 miles from where I live) with a very nice (and very expensive) 10hp Mercury "Bigfoot", various gear (including downriggers) and Caulkins trailer. The whole setup, which is a couple of years old, cost me $3500. I had been watching Craigslist-Seattle for several months, and this was a reasonable, but not great deal. If I had been willing to drive farther than 10 or 15 miles to look at boats I might have found something similar for $500 less, but I wasn't willing to invest the time and gas.
The motor is the most expensive part of the deal, West Marine lists a 2008 version of this motor at $3100. I put a value of $1500 on three year old one I bought. If you are willing to go bottom end, you can probably pick up an old 2 stroke, manual start OB in this power range for $500 or even less. Just be prepared to spend some time working on it. If you can get by w/o the trailer (small boat/big pickup) you can probably save another $500 or so. Me, I've got way more to do in life than time, so I spent the $$ to get an almost new motor (and with the electric start/tilt, one that my kids can operate).
That said, the ideal boat will depend a lot on where you live, what you will want to fish for, and on what bodies of water. Honestly, I would tend to trust folks in your neighborhood a little more than this forum, simply cause I think local knowledge is key. Half the people in my neighborhood have boats of one type or another, and I spent a lot of time chatting them up, discussing how I wanted to use the boat, and where it was going to be kept (which, BTW, eliminated my first choice of buying a Zodiac type of craft). For small lakes, you might even consider forgoing the OB altogether, and just use oars (good for the shoulders) or an electric trolling motor (no smell, mixing gas, fouling plugs, etc). At the launch where I tested the Duroboat, they guy in front of us launched a fancy Alumaweld with a big (probably 100HP+) OB on it, and then proceeded off to fish propelled by his electric trolling motor! Guess he was trying to save on gas ;-)
Good Luck,
-dm