SLEEPY EYE, Minn. — Gov. Tim Walz returned to Minnesota this weekend to kick off pheasant season and to attend a high school football game, as the campaign makes more overt efforts to court male voters.

Here, at the site of the Minnesota Governor’s Pheasant Hunting Opener, a tradition since 2011, Walz was in full hunter’s gear, sporting an orange baseball cap featuring the silhouette of a pheasant and a branded vest for the opener of the season.

Walz’s everyman persona and relatability with male voters could prove critical for the campaign’s efforts to close the gender gap. Since being tapped as Harris’s running mate, the campaign has highlighted his background as a former high school football coach and teacher, and his folksy style and history of connecting with rural voters.

Trump is winning men by an average of 10 points according to high-quality public polls tracked by The Washington Post in September. In 2020 exit polls, Trump won men by eight points, and his campaign has focused in recent months on appealing to young men in particular.

But it’s unclear whether the effort landed on the target audience. During the hunt on Saturday, the governor did not fire his gun, a Beretta A400 he said he purchased for trapshooting.

When one potential target came in range of the governor near a small pool of reporters allowed to watch the hunt, Walz chose not to shoot — invoking the unfortunate incident when then Vice President Dick Cheney, who recently endorsed the campaign, accidentally shot his companion during a quail hunt.

“Every vice president joke ever made was about to be made right there,” Walz said.

The Trump campaign was quick to seize on an online video where he appeared to fumble slightly while trying to clear a shotgun. Right-wing social media posters suggested the gun was not his. But Walz told reporters during the hunt that the Beretta was his own, adding that using someone else’s gun would be like “using someone else’s underwear.”

The Trump campaign also criticized Walz for not carrying a gun in another video, mocking the visit as “a pheasant ‘hunting’ photo op” and “a sign of the future under a Harris-Walz administration.”

Chris LaCivita, the Trump campaign’s top strategist, shared AI images of a hunter loading a gun with tampons (a reference to an insulting nickname that stemmed from Walz signing a law requiring public schools to provide menstrual products to students in 4th through 12th grades).

One member of Walz’s hunting party shot a rooster, but the carcass was not recovered. A member of the group said they also spotted some pheasant hens, which cannot be hunted to preserve the population.

Harris recently reminded voters during the presidential debate in September that she owns a Glock and proclaimed, “We’re not taking anybody’s guns away.”

As a congressman, Walz initially championed gun rights and was active in the Congressional Sportsmen’s Caucus. He then earned an “A” rating from the National Rifle Association, often wearing a camo hat reading “NRA ENDORSED.”

But Walz transformed into an anti-gun advocate after deadly mass killings at a country music festival in Las Vegas and a high school in Parkland, Fla.

On the trail now, Walz speaks passionately about the need for gun control, often referring to his time as a high school teacher and saying the top priority is protecting children.

“I’m a veteran. I’m a hunter. I’m a gun owner,” Walz said at a Wednesday rally in Tucson, telling attendees that he and his running mate respect the Second Amendment and that he was heading to Minnesota for the start of pheasant-hunting season. “I’m all excited to be back there to see this.”

After eating some venison sticks, Walz met with several social influencers: David Clayton, an advocate for homeless veterans; rodeo athlete Ramontay McConnell; and hunting content creator Brandon Adams. In a TikTok video, Clayton asked Walz about bipartisanship and presented him with a fidget spinner for his son, Gus.

Walz told creators that pheasant hunting is his “favorite thing” in part because having dogs around and the ability to move around during the hunt rather than lying in wait such as during a deer hunt.

“Two things about it: the dogs, and for me, I can’t sit still, so it’s moving,” Walz told them. As he then began to discuss his past as a Democrat representing rural districts in the state, members of the news media were removed.

Later, during a stop for a BLT sandwich, Walz did not respond to questions about what he thinks are the reasons for the gender gap, or his plan to win over male voters.

Asked last week about Trump’s appeal to men and his message to men, particularly Black men, Walz touted the campaign’s policies aimed at the middle class and economic opportunity.

“I think we need to make sure we’re getting out to them. We hear what they’re saying,” Walz said in comments to WPVI-TV in Philadelphia. “I think it’s more of taking it to them, making the message tailored.”

On Friday, Walz attended a high school football game as part of that tailored campaign for male voters. He returned to Mankato, Minn., where he once taught and coached, for the crosstown rivalry football game between Mankato East High School and Mankato West High School. Walz was the Mankato West’s defensive coordinator and led the team to the state championship in 1999.

Walz carried a Mountain Dew as he greeted attendees at the game, and then sat in the bleachers signing baseball caps and taking selfies with supporters while seated next to his mother, Darlene Walz.

After huddling with members of the West team, which went on to win the game, Walz said “This is I think best of America, across the country. This is truly ‘Friday Night Lights’ happening here.”

Walz will campaign more in the Midwest on Monday, traveling to neighboring Wisconsin.

Beth Reinhard and Isaac Stanley-Becker contributed to this report.