Advice for a new boat...

[Abbeysdad]

I don't know much of anything about boats as aside from a canoe, I've never had one.
I just got back into fishing this season and soon realized that without a boat, I'm missing out on a lot of potential good fishing. I refurbished an old canoe, but it was/is too confined and not really well suited for 'big water' even with stabilizers (I live a stones throw from the finger lakes - a short hop to Cayuga, Owasco, Skaneateles). But here's the thing...I can't really justify a bass boat as the family would like something more for touring (not so much for ski, but maybe touring, tubing, swimming...) so I'm thinking about a 'fish and ski', runabout type boat. New to boating, I'm thinking of a new boat rather than a used one, but don't have money to burn either, so want to be somewhat conservative w/o settling for something that just won't 'float'. Also, my current vehicle has a towing capacity of 3500, so I need to stay under that.
So many choices out there, what are your thoughts? What's gotta have options vs. nice but not necessary? What should I maybe steer clear of?
I was thinking of going to a boat show in the winter as I hear they have some good deals there (although maybe not quite as good as end of model year sales)? Any input would be helpful -
advance THANK-YOU.