Mushroom Hunters

[jdmidwest]

Has anybody found any morels yet? It was dry here during all of the warm weather, we had a little rain, then it turned off cold. Not good for them here. Maybe this system will bring in some better weather. I have heard of a few found in the leadbelt area. I know Lilley pinned an article on this matter but it has turned to witch doctors.

[vonreed]

Here south of Springfield we've been finding them quite a bit before the cold, maybe 300 or so. You sure become Mr Popular when mushroom season starts, lol.

[jdmidwest]

Maybe I need to take a road trip and take a few lessons on morels, do you know any guides?

I have my spots, usually around ash or sycamores, in log roads or cuts, but never in the quantities like you mention.

[10pointer]

Its been a great early season for me and i have only been out a few days. I think we have picked over 600+ and found around 1000 total (some too small and smashed/old)so far as a conservative estimate! We have some great spots and a new spot produced 500 around one dying elm in a creek bottom but we only picked 300 from it...all were greys for the most part and all were 1.5"- 4" inches tall

We havent been up to the land of morels (northern mo). Last year was particularly slow but we usually get around 100 lbs of shrooms or so from up north in a few days. If things go right this year it should be better. A few years ago we filled 3 jumbo coolers and a few trashbags full of em in a couple days trip!

Plan on this year selling em and making a few bucks so i can buy a few new toys for myself. My cousin usually sells em quick and for $20+ a pound most of the time. We will see though we dont wanna count our chickens before they hatch!

Ive been finding them in the bottoms near mature and dying trees. Hit public lands...we always find a bunch here locally in the st.louis area at mdc and county park areas. Check them out and dont be afraid to walk far!

Ill post a pic of the 300+ find from last week...I dont have the pics on this desktop but i have them on my laptop. Will post soon!

[jdmidwest]

Went today, friend of mine offered up a good place, old growth timber with lots of ash, sycamore, and some elm. NADA, nothing, zilch. Great area and a given producer in past years but nothing. Did not see any types of fungus. It has been pretty dry around here till last night and we had a good soaking rain. Going back later this week.

[10pointer]

heres that picture i was going to post a few days ago. this year has definitely started off right and the mother lode has yet to even come!

heres a neat board all about where and when and who's finding shrooms. Dont know if its been posted yet but its a great tool! Play around with the site and many states have boards and photos to check out!

http://www.morels.com/missouri/guestbook.html

[jjtroutbum]

Holy smokes and I am normally happy with a bread bag or two! How would you even begin to store those? I don't have close to enough room in the fridge.

Nice haul tho.

JJ

[pvspmo]

Good question... how do you guy store your mushrooms? I don't have near that many, but I just keep them in a plastic bag in the fridge. Is that the standard method???

[Gavin]

Thats a nice load of shrooms...Got a small mess of them before the freeze, but I'm hoping to find more when it warms up a bit.

How do you keep em? Whenever I find more than I can eat in a couple days, I dry them, vacuum seal them in little baggies and toss em in the freezer.

[jdmidwest]

I usually cut them in half and soak in salt water for a while to get rid of the bugs, Then I flour and season like I am going to cook, then vacuum seal and freeze. I may try the dehydrator this year for soup later on.