MINNEAPOLIS _ Two hours of sleep was all Trevor Montez could manage as he floated in his boat on a muddy backwater of the Mississippi River in the midnight hours before the Minnesota duck opener.
His long flat-bottomed vessel sealed off the only channel to a wood duck hole that was begging to be hunted at the crack of dawn. The 22-year-old public lands hunter from Cottage Grove arrived late Friday afternoon to stake it out. Like always, he was flanked by a second boat operated by his older brother, Tyler. Their makeshift, open-air camp set the stage for yet another autumn of family duck hunting.
Meet the Montez boys _ four brothers who as youngsters were introduced to duck boats, swamps and shotguns by a father who was mentored the same way. In an era when conservationists and wildlife managers are yearning for an injection of youth to reverse a decades-long decline in waterfowl hunting, Tyler, Trevor, Travis and 16-year-old Tanner Montez are bucking the trend.
Not only do they participate in duck and goose hunting, they're nuts about it.
"It's kept our kids on track and out of trouble," Troy Montez said. "Seems like we spend about every weekend together in the fall."
According to a 2017 report by Delta Waterfowl Foundation, resurgent duck populations haven't solved the "looming crisis" of historically low numbers of duck hunters. For decades, public coffers fed by duck stamp sales and other forms of hunting helped build the U.S. system of national wildlife refuge areas and protect waterfowl breeding grounds.
In the report, Delta Waterfowl executive John Devney laid down a challenge to those still active: "You have to replace yourself as a duck hunter."
Troy Montez, who works as a supply chain manager at North Memorial Medical Center, could be a poster child for the movement. He was taught the traditions by his father, Thomas Montez, a former factory worker at the old Gillette plant in St. Paul. Thomas was a West Sider who moved to the East Side to raise his family. He found it difficult to break into what was then a clannish duck hunting scene until a front-office manager at Gillette showed him the ropes.
