Buy a 3-4k boat, pay cash, and a year later when you’ve been on the water enough to know what you want (or if you even like the water) sell it for the same amount you paid and spend your 10-12k. Or better, buy a 2k boat like I did, run it for a year, spend a weekend REALLY cleaning it top to bottom and sell it for 3k a year later and buy what you’ve figured out you want.
If you plan on going out on the weekends I’d say 20 foot minimum. Even then you’re going to pound a lot because the river is VERY busy on the weekend. We pretty much only go out on the weeknights now, or if we do go out on the weekend we seek out some of the few quiet spots.