Yes, but a 5 mile run across chop in your boat and my wife would be cursing me.

Best advice might be to spend a day on the water with a guide in a true flats boat and see how your wife likes it. She already has experienced some nice bay boats, so that will give her something to compare. You really need to spend some time on the water in boats you are considering before making a decision.

Pat totally agree my Xpress needs 16" of water to run if I had a Hydraulic Jack Plate with out it I need 24" at least and more to get on plane. If I lived In Port O and that is where I fished I would try and find a used ShoalWater. My Xpress for were I fish is practical. I got the 2016 H20Bay Xpress New for 28500 out door. I think the ShoalWater new in 19 foot starts at 38K but do not quote me. I paid cash did not want a note.
Not to long a go there was a 2004 17 ShoalWater the older V hull design with bad motor and trailer that needed some help that was going for 4.5K. It was down in Port O area on craigslist I almost bought it, wishing I had. I would have fixed up trailer the boat and rebuilt the Evinrude in my shop and kept it for lakes hear around Austin and to tow down to Port O and start learning the area.

Good Used Express bays and ShoalWater are hard to find.

Pat makes some great points! I personally agree aluminum will generally hold up better. You want to be able to run shallow. If you're looking at fiberglass Transport makes a very good boat that does well in the chop and runs shallow.

Make a list then narrow it down to a few then most importantly those few boats. Get them on the water and see what you like best.

Buying from a local dealer will certainly help when it comes maintenance time.

I would recommend a 22 to 24 center console. I started with a 21 Kenner years ago and got the tunnel to run really shallow. My wife and family ultimately enjoyed fishing the jetties and offshore more than the bay. I started fishing offshore on calm days and fished many rigs out of port aransas and port Mansfield. Just something to think about. Blazer bay has a nice boat you may want to consider.

I run a Haynie 23 LS, the sides are low enough to slip in and out of in belly deep water, but I also have a swim platform on the port stern for deeper water entry. I don�t currently have trim tabs, but am considering installing a set. With the setup I have now, I can get on plane in about 8-10� of water, and once on plane, I can run in about 6�. I don�t know if she can run in 4�, because I haven�t tried it. I haven�t had to run into those back lakes to find fish. I primarily fish Copano, St. Charles, Shamrock, and areas around Rockport. It�s too big of a boat to pole around, but you don�t need to pole. Aside from back lakes, most of the bottom around Rockport is hard enough to get out of the boat and wade. Most (not all, but most) oyster reefs are marked on the charts, so they�ve been easy enough to avoid, but I�m sure at some point I will find one that isn�t marked, and won�t be happy at that point.
I�ve also had her out on Amistad in 25 mph sustained winds and ran from diablo east up to marker 18 and back with those big rollers crashing, and she performed far better than my old Skeeter bass boat did.
You can pick up a damn nice Haynie, Mabel, Transport, or Shallow Sport in the $40k range, most will already have a graph and power pole.
Take some time, drive a bunch of different makes and models, fiberglass and aluminum, and buy what fits your styles and needs the best.

Wow, thank you everyone for so much well thought out advice and so many great thoughts. It is genuinely appreciated. One of the reasons we always enjoy time in Texas is the great people that live there, and you are certainly representative of that.

I'm going to plan to spend time on as many different boats as I can, and will probably hang out at some ramps and talk with as many different boat owners as I can.

There is a part of me that is a bit of a minimalist, and boats like the Ankona Cayenne have a lot of appeal. When we head down south most of the time we will be driving my one ton dually diesel truck with our Arctic Fox truck camper on it. We enjoy being somewhat mobile, and a boat like the Cayenne would be great for parts of Florida and Louisiana too.

We both just really enjoy fishing. The act of fishing is awesome, but as we all know, a fair amount of actually catching makes things even more fun. My primary motive for thinking about back lake shallow water fishing was what I was told is good, year around red fishing. Knowing that whenever we were able to make it down for a while there is a chance for decent fishing has a lot of appeal. I would sincerely enjoy hearing about any other opportunities that may be similar, and we aren't just limited to the Port O'Connor area. We do like smaller areas and try to avoid big crowds when we can. I certainly haven't written off any potential year around bay or near shore/off shore fishing. We enjoy reds, but we will always size our tackle to our quarry and have fun no matter what the target is. Ideally we would like to find a favorite area that has something we can target year around, even if it's several different species.

Whatever you do, power it w four stroke

Our current boat at home, and the last several boats, have all had 4 stroke power. The only way I would consider a 2 stroke would be to save weight on more of a technical poling skiff, but even then I'd probably rather have a lower horsepower 4 stroke.

Just remember, shallow running boats are like having four wheel drive, you'll certainly enlarge your area, but when it does get stuck, ,you're really really stuck.

But that said, it's the things not mentioned that greatly help out when you can run thin.
The biggest is navigating. Without a tunnel, you're going to hit stuff you can't see.
With a proper tunnel setup, if it's a dark bottom, you're good to go. White sand will tell you when you're in dangerous water.
Same thing with waves, a four inch wave means it's eight inches deep, good to go, slick shoalwater will tell you where you can't.

Having ran jet boats for a lot of years in Alaska, I totally get the shallow water deal. I've been stuck in places more remote than most folks could ever imagine. As a younger guy I ended up with a 26' Duckworth, welded aluminum with a 1/4" bottom, 460 running a big American Turbine pump, 150 gallons of gas. It was beautiful, and it would run shallow and digest quite a few rocks and a lot of muck. When it got stuck, even with a good chainsaw winch and a lot of extra cable, it was a total bugger to get unstuck. There was a time with two moose and a quad in it, we had to unload it, winch it, move everything and reload it. Was close to 10 hours to get unstuck. Over time I ended up going to smaller, lighter boats and never regretted it. I used to joke that with that boat I could get stuck in places others couldn't even get to.

I carry a small come along with me, I can stick my mud anchor down, and winch the scooter over dry sand. Not fun or easy, but as you know it takes less than spit to get a jet up and running. Do I give up creature comforts? Yes. Can I take three fatbodies and four cases of beast with six dozen croakers to soak? No. But that's not how we fish.

If it is how you fish, you just need to compromise on where you can and can't go.

Do not buy a traditional bay boat to fish POC redfish. You will regret it. We split our trips between Rockport and POC/Seadrift. I had a bay boat that worked fairly well around Rockport but sucked at fishing POC. I sold that boat and we are about to take delivery on a Gulf Coast. It won't run super-skinny like Pat but will do what we want. You need a tunnel or cat to fish POC.

We also fish with Nathan Beabout and out of Bay Flats Lodge. Bay Flats guides generally work popping corks over reefs and Shoalwater. Nathan either wades or sight-fishes for reds. I would encourage you to book a trip with Nathan to sight-fish reds. Go mid-week. Nathan mostly fishes out of Seadrift. The Reel Time Lodge there is clean and reasonably priced. I'm sure there are plenty of guides out of POC as well but for sure Nathan wades and sight-casts in the back lakes.

yeah, fishing POC/Seadrift was a challenge in a 16ft john boat with the motor bolted high on the transom with no tunnel hull
Too many places we couldn't go without even trying to fish the back lakes

It's pretty simple, you gotta run through this

To get back into this:

So you can do this:

And end up with this: