SPRINGFIELD, MINN. — Gov. Tim Walz sat on the tailgate of a red pickup on Saturday afternoon, eating venison and talking about hunting dogs.

It could’ve been any other October morning for the Minnesota Governor’s Pheasant Hunting Opener. The only difference, this year, was the roughly two dozen reporters watching him.

And the Secret Service team.

Oh, right, and a pool of digital influencers waiting to chat with him.

That’s because, two months ago, Walz became part of the eye of the nation’s political storm when Vice President Kamala Harris picked him as her running mate for the White House. He’s rarely been back in Minnesota since then.

His weary staff members stood along the sidelines of Saturday’s hunt in rural Brown County, trading tales of trekking to multiple states a day, living out of hotels and growing accustomed to metal detector scans by the Secret Service.

Gov. Tim Walz takes a campaign break for the Minnesota Pheasant Hunting Opener on Saturday.

On Friday night, Walz’s team attended the high school football rivalry game in Mankato, watching his Mankato West High School Scarlets pick up a victory.

On Saturday morning, the governor arrived wearing a blaze orange hunting cap and toting a Beretta shotgun in quest of a pheasant. Unfortunately, for the hunting party, which included landowner Matt Kucharski, Nobles County Pheasants Forever Chapter President Scott Rall and Pheasants Forever CEO Marilyn Vetter, Walz didn’t get a bird. He didn’t even fire a shot during his time walking through the tall grass.