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How to Hunt for Morel Mushrooms After a Rain
How to Hunt for Morel Mushrooms After a Rain. In Appalachia, the elusive morel mushroom often receives the nickname “dry-land fish” due to both its fishy taste and appearance during the rainy, spring season. Hunting for morel mushrooms requires a passion for the mushroom’s flavor as well as respect for the mystery of the fruit....
In Appalachia, the elusive morel mushroom often receives the nickname "dry-land fish" due to both its fishy taste and appearance during the rainy, spring season. Hunting for morel mushrooms requires a passion for the mushroom’s flavor as well as respect for the mystery of the fruit. Morel mushrooms require such specific growing conditions that few attempts at commercial production succeed and finding these mushrooms in the wild is often like searching for the infamous needle in a haystack.
Things You'll Need
Pocket knife
Mesh or plastic bag
Dress appropriately for your trip out in the woods and gather all your hunting materials ahead of time. Wear warm clothing and shoes that will not soak-through. Late March and early April provide the best time to hunt morel mushrooms, but do not provide the most desirable temperatures or weather, so dress warmly in water-resistant clothing to prevent yourself from becoming sick.
Enter the woods after a rain, while it is only sprinkling or even days after a period of rain. Walk carefully; watching every step you make to ensure you do not step on a morel. You can identify a morel by its spongy head that appears in shades of brown. The stalk attached to the mushroom head typically appears in a tan shade.
Check out prime morel growing locations to increase your chances of finding morels to harvest. Tom Volk, at the University of Wisconsin reports that morels often grow in locations where a forest fire occurred and on fallen, decaying trees. However, bear in mind that morels can occur anywhere and not just in these locations.
Harvest morels you locate by cutting off the stems of the mushrooms at ground level. This helps to avoid dirt on the stems, while also leaving the mycelium root structure of the mushroom in the ground to increase the chances that morels produce in the same location in following years. Simply cut the morel stems with a pocket knife and keep the knife closed when not in use.
Place harvested morels in a plastic or mesh bag. Mesh allows the mushrooms to breath and dry, while plastic bags do not. If you use plastic bags, be sure to remove the morels from the bag as soon as you return from your hunting trip, to prevent the mushrooms from rotting and becoming soggy.
