At his final Governor's Fishing Opener, Tim Walz talked next chapter

STILLWATER, Minn. - On the morning before his final Governor's Fishing Opener in the title role, Tim Walz stood on the Stillwater waterfront, posting for myriad pictures and doing interviews with the community's iconic Lift Bridge and the bluffs of Wisconsin behind him.

Asked if his friend Tony Evers, the governor from the other side of the St. Croix River, might offer some ribbing about using America's Dairyland as a backdrop, Walz took a poke at their friendly rivalry when it comes to their state's respective waters.

"I am dogging him about (how) they count, like, half acre ponds as lakes," Walz said, with a sly smile. "He says they've got 12,000, so I don't know."

For the record, in Minnesota you need 10 acres of water to count as a lake, and the state officially has 11,842 of them.

In an exclusive interview with the Pioneer Press, Walz talked of his decision to not seek a third term, after initially throwing his hat in the ring. As the 2026 legislative session winds down, he said the state is clearly feeling the pain of losing former Speaker of the House Melissa Hortman last June, when she and her husband were shot to death in their Brooklyn Park home by a gunman disguised as a police officer.

"This was the right thing. I knew it last year after Melissa's murder, I said that it was time, and everything has a time," he said. "I do think that there's a shelf life on this, no matter if you think you're doing good or bad, there's still a shelf life on it. I think the voters are the ultimate term limit … and as it turned out, this is the right thing."

‘Missing piece'

He compared Hortman favorably to former U.S. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi for their negotiating skills, and said with the DFL's small majority in the state Senate and the tie with the GOP in the state House, the absence of Hortman's deal-making skills is being felt.

"I think we're all dealing with it, and I think, to be honest with you, in the negotiations, I think there's some trauma coming out in all of us. Because there is a piece missing," Walz said. "And I say this, 'cause I've been around it: I have a narrow skill set, but I know what it is. I know what a good legislator looks like …The only person who gets stuff done like that was Pelosi. There'd be things where I was voting against Pelosi, and I was madder than hell at her, and 30 minutes later, I'm with her. That was Melissa. It's a gift, and it's really changed."

The eight years Walz has spent in the governor's office - after a dozen years in the U.S. Congress representing Southern Minnesota - have been marked by challenging times. COVID-19 shut down the state in the early spring of 2020. Two months later, the Twin Cities were rocked by the killing of George Floyd and the subsequent rioting.

After Walz's failed run for vice president on the 2024 ballot, the past two years of his second term have been clouded by fraud scandals that opponents have linked to lack of oversight by the Walz administration.

Then, this past winter saw months of federal immigration raids in Minnesota, hundreds of arrests, and the killing of two Minneapolis residents by federal agents.

The outgoing governor acknowledged the challenging times, but said in early 2026 we also saw the best of Minnesotans.

"What happened this winter just feels so unnecessary to me. And just the harm that you could feel that it did to Minnesotans," he said. "But I will say this, and I'm feeling it, if there is a silver lining in this of watching the way the rest of the country, the rest of the world sees Minnesotans. It was a decency, and it was a coming together, and it kind of transcends politics, because you had folks that said, ‘I'm Republican, but I don't agree with this.' Or ‘I'm a Democrat, and we need to do this.'"

Hiking trip

As for the chapter that begins next January, when Minnesota's 41st governor is sworn in, Walz said he and his daughter have plans to hike one of the world's prominent mountains together - plans that were put on hold two years ago when he got a life-changing call from then-Vice President Kamala Harris in early August.

"In 2024, I'd set it up that we were gonna go to Nepal, then Kathmandu. And I'd set up a trip for my daughter and we were going monastery to monastery. And we were gonna go on the south side of Everest, not to base camp, and all the craziness or whatever," he recalled. "That trip was scheduled to kick off Sept. 1 … So that trip got canceled."

Walz, who taught high school social studies in Mankato before getting into politics, admitted that his mind keeps drifting back to the classroom, and finding a way he can return to that life, at least now and then, after leaving the governor's office behind.

"I think it's what I'm probably best at, is teaching," he said. "I think I have to find how that fits."

As if on cue, a few dozen children wearing life jackets and wielding fishing rods filled the waterfront behind him, trying their hand at angling, many for the first time, with instructors from the Minnesota DNR showing them the ropes.

"This is fun," Walz said, smiling broadly. "Just watch one of these kids catch one."

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This story was originally published May 8, 2026 at 6:09 PM.