Sleepy Eye, Minnesota – Carrying a Beretta shotgun, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz He trekked through tall, straw-like grass for three hours Saturday for the opening day of the state’s pheasant hunting season, but despite his best efforts, he never had a chance.
“There are good days and there are great days when pheasant hunting,” Walz said when the day was over.
Scott Rall, a friend of the governor with whom he often hunts, made the only kill Saturday. Recovering the birds’ bodies was a top priority in the instructions given to the hunting party, but no one could find the carcass in the thick brush that at some points grew as tall as Walz himself.
Many of the pheasants and animals that emerged from the tall grass and straw flew backwards towards the press. At one point, that led Walz to seemingly allude to the Hunting accident from 2006 involving former Vice President Dick Cheney, in which Cheney accidentally shot a fellow fighter in the face.
“Every vice president joke ever made was about to be made on the spot. And I was just like that,” Walz said as he gestured for him to get his gun out of the safety zone.
“Too far,” Walz said of a bird in his field of vision.
Wearing Carhartt hunting chaps and an orange vest to commemorate the annual season opener, the Governor participated in the hunt in his official capacity as Governor. Yet this was followed by a campaign involvement and followed a recent campaign announcement unveiling a new voting coalition of hunters, fishermen and gun owners.
CBS News
The new coalition will seek to underline Harris’s support for “traditional activities.”
Both Vice President Kamala Harris and Walz have made an effort the fact that they are recent gun owners — all the while continuing to advocate for legislation like universal background checks. In an interview with “60 Minutes,” Harris revealed that she owns a Glock, and during an event with Oprah Winfrey, the former prosecutor declared: “If anyone breaks into my house, he’s going to be shot.”
Walz told CBS News that the Beretta A400 he carried on the hunt was one he bought when he was doing a lot of trap shooting. He noted that the gun’s feature was a “kickoff.”
“So as you get old, your shoulder hurts less,” he said.
During a break to exchange hunting dogs, Walz had locally sourced venison and a Diet Mountain Dew. He was referring to Sergeant, one of three black Labradors who led most of the hunt.
“Sarge is here saying I just worked two damn hours and these guys couldn’t even shoot one,” he joked.
Walz, who grew up in rural Nebraska and regularly visits farms and football games during his campaign, is trying to appeal to male and rural voters. This is evident from a CBS News poll from August a gender gap among likely voters approaching 2020 levels.
In the poll, 45% of likely male voters said they would choose Harris, compared to 54% who said they would support former President Donald Trump.
The poll shows that women are also more likely than men to see Harris as someone who “fights a lot for people like you.”
Walz has previously bragged about being the best candidate in Congress when he served in the House of Representatives.
While reminiscing Saturday about past shooting with his fellow congressional delegation from Minnesota, Walz said, “I always loved that congressional shooting, but it was kind of dangerous because it was all Second Amendment guys who didn’t really know” how to shoot.
When someone in the hunt mentioned Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio, the Republican vice presidential nominee, Walz asked, “Are those guys shooting?”
Trump doesn’t chase. CBS News has reached out to Vance’s team.
In a statement, the Trump campaign called Saturday’s hunt “staged,” and Trump campaign co-chairman Chris LaCivita said Walz was “bumbling while trying to load his shotgun.”
