Morel hunting is more than picking mushrooms. When in the woods know what to look for, what to carry, and how to act.
Where to Find Mushrooms
Certain types of habitat will produce mushrooms. Learn about this type of habitat to enhance your mushrooming experience.
Sometimes word of mouth is the best bet in finding productive mushroom habitat. Morel mushrooms often grown in localized spots that not many people know about. Finding them can be an adventure!
If you're in a general area that should produce morel mushrooms, look for people with woven bags. This is a dead giveaway that morel mushroom habitat will be found. Experienced morel hunters always carry bags that will release morel spores for the following season.
Look for stalks of mushrooms that people have left behind and then return to this spot the following year.
How to Carry Morel Mushrooms
Morel mushrooms should be carried in some sort of woven bag. Bags should be very loosely woven. Specialty outdoor shops often carry such bags. A bag that is used to enclose onions can also be used. Not only are onion bags cheap (the price of a bag of onions) but they work very well. These types of bags allow mushroom spores to freely disperse throughout the environment, something that every morel hunter wants, because the more morel mushrooms around - the better.
How to Pick Morel Mushrooms
Morels should be picked at the base of the mushroom. Squeeze the mushroom at the bottom of the stalk, leaving a small amount of the stalk left on the ground. This method allows mushrooms to regrow the following season. Do not pick the entire morel mushroom out of the ground. Picking the entire morel mushroom out of the ground depletes the resource, and you might not find morel mushrooms in that area the following season.
Morel Mushroom Etiquette
No experienced mushroom hunter will readily give away his tried and true areas to finding morel mushrooms. It is considered bad etiquette to ask people specifically where to find morel mushrooms. If you do ask, at perhaps a restaurant or other public place, you will probably be directed to very general areas that have been known for years and will be quickly overpicked.
Learning local secrets can be found, but remember, once a local secret is learned, the locals are on to the next best patch.
Finding morel mushrooms is more than learning where they are; learn local etiquette and how to propagate the morel mushroom species for future generations.
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