Hunting Mushrooms: Tips from an Expert

My brother has found close to four hundred mushrooms so far this season. I've found one. I've tried all the tips I've been taught: elm trees, May apples. Nothing seems to pan out for me. It makes you wonder how one man can find so many in just a few trips into the woods. What method could possibly be that successful? So I asked him. He looked at me like I wanted to borrow his identity. "They're just mushrooms," I told him. "Besides, your secret is safe with me."

Apparently, it's all about the lighting, so when you hunt makes all the difference. The secret is to hunt mushrooms in the early to late morning, then again in the late afternoon. Don't bother hunting around noon, when the sun is highest and brightest. It makes sense, really. The way the light shines off of things on the forest floor makes it difficult to distinguish color. The color of mushroom blends in with dead yellow leaves from last fall. That makes overcast days the prime time to hunt.

My brother's advice is to find one mushroom and study it. Get the color in your head. If you go during the right time of day, you'll be able to focus solely on this color. There's nothing else in the woods the exact shade of morels. When you scan the leaves, look for the color--not shape--of mushroom. He claims that, if you use this method, the mushrooms will literally pop out at you.

Seasoned mushroom hunters have one other huge advantage. They know where the mushrooms patches are from year to year. While we have to figure out whether the conditions are right in certain areas for mushrooms, they only have to figure out the way back to a patch they found last year or the year before. However, when you find a good patch, don't be greedy. Leave a few to go to seed. That way, that particular place will most likely yield mushrooms the next season. My brother finds most of his morels in patches he visits year after year. The same patch may even produce multiple batches of mushrooms throughout the season.

I listened contently to my brother's advice, but I doubt I'll use it. It turns out, I'm just not a mushroom hunter. I'll leave that to my expert brother--and to you, if you care to follow the secrets of his success. Just don't tell him I told you.