Newbie Looking to buy first boat

[ckaiser]

Hi all. New here. I"m looking at buying my first boat. Live in AZ, want something for the Colorado river and its lakes (havasu, mohave, mead), Topock Marsh and Gorge, and maybe other places. Fishing, pleasure.
Low budget; no more than ~$3K and preferrably less. Used, of course. Prepared to kiss a lot of frogs to find a princess.

I've been considering shallow-V bass boats or fish and skis. 17-20 ft, probably. I want something that will move along smartly and handle the Topock gorge but don't need a speedboat. I also want something low draft that can handle the shallows in the marsh.
Half the time it would be 2 people, but would have 3-4 adults regularly.

I know the knock on F&Ss is that they do nothing well, but they seem to be a reasonable compromise for a first boat. I like to fish but am not a tournament fisher or anything like that.

I'm looking for recommendations, advice, cautions, experiences, etc.
I've read through the entire Craigslist thread and learned a LOT there. Since CL is our major boat ad source around here, it's good to know how people translate things.

I've seen a few interesting ads that I'd like some feedback about.
The first is this one:
http://lasvegas.craigslist.org/boa/1827528584.html
It's an 87 Thunderbolt bass boat. I have not been able to find much info about these boats. Any thoughts?

The second is this one:
http://mohave.craigslist.org/boa/1825201759.html
The interior looks nice, but it seems possibly overpriced for a Bayliner (and I've read about their rep) and I can't help but wonder if the new interior covered up some problems farther down.
Is there a way to check for sub-floor rot without tearing things apart?

I've been originally thinking outboard, but a friend recommended Volvo I/O. Any thoughts?

OK. Enough for now. Thanks much!

Charlie
Kingman, AZ

 

[convergent]

Re: Newbie Looking to buy first boat

I'm by no means an expert at this stuff, but had a few comments on your question. I just bought a boat about a month ago and ended up spending a tad more than your budget on a '93 fish and ski with 115 outboard. I'm very happy with the boat and it does everything pretty well... so I'm not agreeing with those that say fish and skis do everything badly. I've done a bit of fishing on it and about the only real negatives vs. a bass boat are it has smaller platforms and less fishing rod storage. I can live with both of those. It gets me up to very, very shallow water with the troller and handles very well. Maybe if I had come from a pro bass boat then I'd be missing something but I feel like I've died and gone to heaven compared to the way I fished before (from a canoe).

We've done skiing, tubing, and wakeboarding now (as of this weekend) and its doing quite well with all of those too. With the 115 I'm getting a guy up that is 240 with 4 people in the boat (and a dog).

I've never had an outboard in the past, but I repeatedly see people recommend them on here for older boats especially, because they are easier to maintain and can ultimately be replaced fairly easily too if needed. They also minimize the possibility of a damaged transom due to leaks. So far, about the only thing I've noticed is it is a bit more temperamental to get started initially, but once its fired its solid throughout the day. With a little advice from the folks here on the forum, the last outing I was running on the second turn of the key and its never taken more than about a 6-8 turns when I think I wasn't doing it right.

I think the main, main, main thing about buying a used boat is how it was maintained and stored when not in use. The one I bought has been garage kept and the gelcoat looks like new and the seats are in very good condition... all original. If someone has "replaced the carpeting" or "redone the floor", I'd be a little nervous because there might be other problems hidden... rotted stringers and such. The way I looked at it was that if the part that I could see was meticulously maintained, then what I couldn't see had a good chance of being as well.

I have to say that I couldn't be a lot happier with our purchase. I spent $4500 and have a really nice looking boat that I'm proud be sitting in, and we've had a ton of fun with it so far. This one is a 17.5' boat and I probably could have use a bit longer... 19-20'. But at this point I think I could easily re-sell this boat without losing anything. I told my wife when I bought it that I'd feel better if I spent this much and ended up wanting to buy something bigger/newer in a year, than if I spent twice this much on a bigger/newer version of the same thing and it ended up sitting in the garage unused. So far we've used it a ton. I have hardly gotten a chance to go fishing because my kids (14, 18, 20, 23) want to go out tubing/skiing/wakeboarding now all the time. Not a bad thing considering that before we got the boat I hardly saw them anymore because they were always out with their friends.