MINNEAPOLIS — Ted Burger knew last fall he likely wouldn’t hunt ducks again. He and his identical twin, Bud, were in a blind on property they own not far from Bemidji. Ted hadn’t been feeling well, and on this last morning, he cradled his Benelli and peered into the gathering morning light. He shot a drake redhead, and that was that.

Growing up in St. Louis Park, Ted and Bud were Minnesota boys through and through. Always together, they picked worms, cast fishing lines and filled pillow cases full of cranberries.

Years later, everyone in Minnesota would know who Ted and Bud Burger were. Starting with a single store at 44th and France in Edina, they eventually owned and operated six Burger Brothers sporting goods stores, with 400 employees.

If you hunted, fished, camped or hiked, Burger Brothers had the clothing and gear you needed.

Ted and Bud did it all.

From Quebec, where for 20 years they fly fished the Moise River for Atlantic salmon, to the Northwest Territories, where they climbed the Mackenzie Mountains to hunt Dall sheep, to northern Minnesota, where they followed their dogs in pursuit of ruffed grouse, the Burger brothers were the real deal.

“Our belief was if we established stores that handled only better and best quality gear, people would buy it,’’ Bud said. “As it turned out, we were correct. We learned that a person’s income bracket didn’t necessarily determine what he or she would pay for quality outdoor equipment. They wanted boots that fit, and rain gear that worked.’’

Ted died May 4 after a long illness.

Rarely apart in their 81 years, they attended the same high school and college. They even joined the Air Force together under a Vietnam-era program that allowed identical twins to be assigned to the same unit.

Smart guys, they served in the Air Force Security Command and worked in the Pentagon.

“When we got out of the Air Force, we started formulating our business plans and researching the various buying groups we would affiliate with,’’ Bud said. “This was important, because our philosophy from the outset wasn’t price point but quality of product. In order to sell it at the right price, we had to buy it at the right price.’’

When Ted and Bud were teenagers, their dad, Clement, was a commercial painting contractor who could get his sons side jobs if they had union cards. Enrolling in Dunwoody Institute, the brothers earned their apprentice painter certifications, and on weekends and even school nights they brushed and rolled paint at job sites throughout the Twin Cities.

Flush with their painting cash, they funded an elk hunting trip to Alberta, where Bud shot a bull whose antlers scored 350, the biggest of his life.

They were 18 years old at the time.

The next year, they drove 700 miles to Grand Prairie, Saskatchewan, to hunt ducks and geese, only to be told the birds were farther north. “So we drove another 250 miles,’’ Bud said.

From those expeditions, and many more, the brothers’ brainstorm for a sporting goods store was born.

“The Edina store laid the foundation for our other stores,’’ Bud said. “We created an awareness about the benefits of quality gear and offered seminars on how to use it. We knew if we taught a person how to be successful in the outdoors, they would participate in the outdoors more and need more clothing and equipment. We also hired knowledgeable employees, which was critical. Our motto was, ’The best price with the right advice.’ ”

Time would pass. Ted would marry, then Bud. Children followed. One store became two, then three, four and eventually six. An operation that started with a handful of employees grew to hundreds, and in 1995 the brothers sold their namesake stores to the third generation of the Erickson family, owners of Holiday gas stations.

Burger Brothers stores would become flagship outlets for Gander Mountain, which at its peak operated more than 160 sporting goods stores in 27 states before filing for bankruptcy.

“Figuring it was better looking out a window in northern Minnesota than in the Twin Cities,” as Bud once said. In retirement the brothers bought 500 acres on the Mississippi River not far from Bemidji, and with their wives built homes there a few hundred yards apart.

Freed of their business obligations, they had a specialized aluminum boat built for fishing lake trout on Lake Nipigon, Ontario. They built an island getaway on Lake of the Woods. And they hunted ducks together from the blind on their North Woods compound.

They forged their own paths, too.

For 30 years, Ted and his wife, Kathy, who died in January, spent winters in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, where they owned a home and a boat in which Ted regularly plied the Sea of Cortez, fishing rod in hand.

Bud, meanwhile, forged a reputation as a nationally recognized sculptor. His wax showpieces ultimately are cast in bronze, often as life-size replicas of deer, elk and other wildlife.

“I haven’t done any shows for two and a half years, but I’m going to do one this winter,” Bud said. “Art has always been a passion of mine and thank God I have it right now. Because with Ted gone, sculpting gets me into a different mindset.”

Uncertain, Bud said, is whether he’ll keep the cabin on Lake of the Woods where he and Ted enjoyed so many good times fishing for walleyes and lake trout.

“We’ll see how much I use it,” he said.

What Bud isn’t worried about is losing the serenity of the 500 northern Minnesota acres on which he and Ted and their wives built their homes.

Years ago, he and Ted agreed the surviving brother would control the property’s destiny.

Having spent so much time together, they knew best what the other would want.

©2026 The Minnesota Star Tribune. Visit startribune.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC