Skiing won't be serious and I was leaning towards an outboard since that's all my parent's have ever owned and all of them have been virtually trouble free.

Thanks for all of the great feedback

 

Labnerd has tons of good points!

All I will ever buy personally is an aluminum outboard. They take abuse, and with a nice sharp V hull or better-- bring the swells.

 

Well after talking to the wife we think we are going to try to start a family so there will probably be little ones before too long. So I think I'll need to increase the size of the boat. The 17 to 18 footers are probably going to be a little cramped with say 1-3 year olds since most small kids I've been around love to run around. A deck boat might me ideal but I hate to spend the extra money.

 

Just a recomendation from experience. When my children were younger, we had jetskis. Stand ups and sitdowns. WE also had a good jon boat. So basically, we'd anchor the jonboat out on the lake and use it for a platform to jetski from. It worked out great. We also had a 22 foot Mcgregor anchored at the Marina. So when we went to the lake, no one got bored.

 

Jet skis are nothing but money pits. I'd never want to own one. They're fun for about 15 mins at a time.

How bout a nice Tritoon boat? You can get them with decent power nowadays (I know of one with twin 300s hanging off the back) and would be a great platform for kids.

 

Crestliner Sportfish 1850 or 1950 with 4 stroke outboard. This is what I'm looking for. I just sold my Chaparral - it was a great boat, but NOT ideal for fishing, a gas hog, and very expensive maintenance. Plus it is very heavy and a pain in the rear to pull with my F150 in the mountains (hell, even on flat land).

Next time definitely aluminum hull, outboard, bow-mount trolling motor, and enough seats for 6-7 people and power for skiing. Lightweight to tow and fuel efficient. Maintenance is fairly cheap, and can keep fishing when the temps drop because it doesn't need to be winterized.

Good luck!

 

I never got tired of riding standups, I just got to old. When we got tired of Jetskiing, we get the Mcgregor and take a pleasant sail, While the kids jetski'd. It was a blast.

 

Tahoe is a good boat, I have the tahoe q6 sport , Bought it in 05 it was a 06 model new. I t does not have the trolling motor. I fish off it all the time an have no issues with the sides being to high. Big differents is you can get the back seat cousion that snaps on on the sport fish so you ahve access to the well to put the fish in. I have the I/o and was a new boater when I bought it and if you ahve ever changed your own oil and such doing mantenece on your boat motor will be pretty much the same.