The Carsten Pintail isn’t exactly a kayak, but it does fit within the category of a small boat that can be paddled. Almost. The thing is, there just aren’t very many kayaks that I would recommend that are incredibly stable and that work well for hunting with a dog.
The Ascend H12 and the Frontier 12 are certainly stable, and you can definitely hunt with a dog out of those kayaks, but do they excel in that category? In my opinion, no. That’s where the Carsten Pintail comes in. This fiberglass boat/kayak is the ideal setup for layout duck hunting with one man and a dog.
If I hunted with a big 80lb plus lab and hunted by myself or with other layout boat hunters the majority of the time, I would still have my Carsten Pintail. It is stable enough to stand up in and move around with ease, yet small enough to load in the back of the truck.
The Carsten Pintail is a very popular duck hunting kayak, and for good reason. It does a lot of things very well, and it could be the perfect fit for a certain situation.
I purchased the Pintail and used it for several seasons. I started off paddling it on walk in public hunting areas but quickly got tired of that. You can paddle this boat, but if you want to go long distances it takes quite a bit of effort.
Midway through the season, I added my mini swamp runner mud motor with a DIY motor mount and that was the perfect fit for the boat. However, after a few hunts, I got tired of unloading a 100lb kayak plus 50lb motor in and out of the bed of the truck. So I bought a trailer for it. That was a very nice layout duck hunting setup and I really enjoyed using it, but it just wasn’t quite the perfect fit for my hunting scenarios.
After I bought an Ascend H12, along with a 16ft motorized john boat, the Carstens Pintail ended up landing somewhere in between, and just didn’t get the same amount of use as my other setups. I eventually got rid of it to make space for other boats, but I would not hesitate to buy another if I started to do more solo duck hunting with just myself and a dog.
