I recently bought my first real boat and I am looking to add a bow mount trolling motor and a new fish finder to it. But I have to admit that I am a bit out of my league so I am seeking advice.

The boat is a 16ft alum flatbottom with a 40hp. As of now it has neither of the aforementioned items. I have roughly an $800 budget left to spend on this thing.

For the TM, I believe I want a foot controlled, but I have no idea how much thrust I would want for this boat. Academy has several models around the $350 mark but they all look the same to me.

For the fishfinder I am completely at a loss. I have an older/cheapest of the cheap/grey scale finder for the little jon boat, but I swear that thing lies more often than it shows whats really there. Says its 4ft deep and its 15 and so on. I want something I can depend on to show whats really going on. I fish for everything, so id like it to have decent representation of bottom structure, brushpiles, suspended fish and so forth. I have not been able to target some of the species I want to before because I just cant seem to find em, so hopefully this will help. GPS would be cool, but can be sacrificed in a heartbeat if needed to improve the fish finding side.

Any input would be appreciated.

With that budget you are pretty much limited to the 45# thrust range for a foot controlled trolling motor and a GPS/Sonar unit.

Motor Guide and MinnKota have models in the $400 price range.
A decent sized screen for a Sonar/GPS will be $500+

If you eliminate the GPS requirement, you have lots of choices to stay within your budget and can get a more powerful trolling motor. The "rule of thumb" for trolling motors is get the most powerful you can afford. Then you have to consider the price of battery/s and charger.

I have two batteries and charger that I used for the TM on my jon boat so thats not an issue.

Not to go off on a tangent too much here, but what fishfinder do you have at the console? If you have an older unit there, I'd consider getting a good unit with GPS and moving your older existing unit to the bow. If you don't have anything there, you might want to try to get a unit that you could put on a RAM mount so you can use it in both places.

I'm only asking because it seems like my method of fishfinder acquisition has been to get a new one and move my old one from the console to the bow, so I've got my best unit at the console and still have a pretty good one at the bow. But this really only works well under certain conditions, so I'm just asking.

The other question I would ask is what kind of fishing you like doing. Do you get in the coves and run and gun or do you troll around in the main lake or do you find some fish and tie up to try to catch them? Just some more stuff to consider.

What Budget and Sonar Technology do you want? 2D Traditional Sonar or do you want to step up to High Frequency Sonar like Down Imaging? You mentioned you didn't believe the 2D sonar and Down Imaging will help make it easier to positively ID what you are seeing below you. Humminbird builds 2D/DI units h\that give you the best of both world and still very economical. Look at the 300 & 500 Series DI units. Work great on the trolling motor.