Newbie seeking advice on main power sorce.

[Ben]

You can deffinatly use a trolling motor or two to get you around. As for the ancor, if the bottom is muddy I have found that the mushroom type anchors work pertty well. If you are not trying to run up and down the banks and are just trying to get somewhere and anchor to fish a trolling motor would work. The most important thing is to make sure you learn when you are on the water. I bought a 14 1/2 foot glass stream bass boat with a 40hp on it when I was 16. It was $2000 and I had been saving for a summer. It was a great boat but I learned what I liked and didn't like. I ended up selling the boat for $2700, so I didn't cost me anything for the lesson. However I know now that the next boat I get will be longer, wider and have more storage and a stronger trolling motor. So I guess the moral of the story is to make sure you learn from each experience. There is no real way to know what you need/want to fit your needs until you get out there and try something.

Also make sure that you always look at what you are trying to build and compare the build price to the built price. In other words don't spend $2500 getting a motor put on your boat when you can get a boat with a motor and trolling motor in better shape for $2000. It's easy to say "well I already have this much in it", but try not to get to that point. I have found that getting a small fairly cheap boat that runs pretty good but doesn't look that great is the best way to go. When you get to piecing things together you spend more time trouble shooting then you do fishing.

 

[SVOMike86]

A standard mushroom anchor should work fine. Someone else should chime in about size, but I would say 1 or 2 10lb anchors would be good. If you have 2 anchors, you can put one off the front, and one off the back and the boat wont swing around on you. If you go with one, you may want to get one a little bigger than 10lb I guess, but not sure.
A good deep cycle battery should last all day with no problems. Some people swear by the $250 Optima's, but for the time being, you can get a deep cycle from walmart for less than $75.