Northern Minnesota shrooms

[Silkworm]

Went out yesterday after work for my first search of the year and found 30 Morels in Redby. Talked my cousin into giving up his spot. Nothing to big though. Any other reports from Northern Minnesota? Size? Numbers?

[ec30_06]

found about the same by bigfork

[upnorthvoice]

Mostly maples around my place, what is the best type of woods to look for Morels in northern mn? I'm a newbie,never seen or picked any. I need something to go with the leeks....

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[Matt Breuer]

Find the low areas full of poplar, birch, ash, etc... Wet areas with a lot of lichen and leaf litter is perfect. If it looks like it's going to hold good numbers of woodcock in the fall, chances are that it'll hold morels in the spring!

I've been out 5 times or so, with the last 3 outings over the past 1.5 weeks yielding some good numbers around Bemidji. I think the ground is still too cold due to our frigid nights, as I'm not finding any huge blacks or good clusters yet. I think our season is going to boom then fall out quickly....

[upnorthvoice]

Thanks Matt, I'll do some scouting next week, sounds like rain over the weekend.

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[Matt Breuer]

Don't hesitate to e-mail me... I see you're from Itasca, and I can probably help you cut your search time a lot!

[Steve Foss]

We just went out for an hour this morning near Bemidji after a day of rain and found about 30 decent blacks.

Our spots for blacks near Bemidji tend to do well when the wild strawberries are just starting to bloom or are in bloom, the ferns are half unfurled, and the coralroot are unfurling. We find them in the best numbers in open deciduous woodlands without a lot of underbrush, but nice leaf litter and several stages of fallen and rotting tree trunks. As always, a day after a rain tends to be good. We find many of ours along tree trunks that have rotted so much that they are nothing but mossy humps on the forest floor.

The background in the pic is just such a place.

We're more casual about morels than some, and the spots we pick near the family cabin are on private land. Of course we have permission, but the landowner picks, too, so we rarely find one of those massive hauls. A few dozen in a couple hours work between my wife and I is a decent yield.

[Johnny_Magellan]

EC-I'm leasing some land not too far from Bigfork.

When we were up for fishing opener, I hit up a neighbor as to whether or not they get morels.

He admitted that he mushroom hunts, but for chanterelle's rather than morels.

He didn't think morels grew around there too much.

The only thing we found for shrooms on our property was false morels-nothing else.

So, next time I'm up, I'll take another look for morels, but do you know when chanterelle's pop around that area? After some online reading, I'm anxious to give them a try.

Thanks.

[Matt Breuer]

Last year was my first hunting chantrelles. Usually late-July to early Sept. is the best from everything I've heard/read. I found a good pile of them while bear baiting, and it was at the same time that I was picking blackberries in the Bemidji area, so I'm thinking it was August 20th or so... I would say mid-August would be the time to hunt chantrelles up north...

That's a nice haul, Foss. Those open woods areas are like that for me around here, some big blacks but not huge numbers. When the wet areas with a ton of aspen and diamond willow dry up, hundreds explode in a small area. This year = too wet for those huge finds for me.

Anyone else think it's just a bad year for blacks up north? Instead of 50 in a spot, it's 5. Instead of 2 pounds in a day, it's a half-pound...

[Trashguy]

Agreed Matt. Very poor this year up there. I hunt Cass county and got exactly 20% of what I found last year. I hunted for over a week and the last day was Tuesday. Found about 75 that day, but left them all in the woods, as the were way to ripe. Had found three new spots last year that produced around 300, this year I found exactly one!! The low spots didn't do anything at all, only the old reliable spots on the hills with some sun. What ever triggered the good year last year, didn't happen this season.

I also do the Chants and last year it wasn't even much fun, because they were so abundant and easy to find. Usually find my first ones in the middle of July on through the middle of Sept. Wish they would preserve better. Tried every different way of preserving them, but they just don't come out very good as the texture changes too much & they are a "turn off". I did pickle some and that wasn't too bad.

Larry

[Johnny_Magellan]

Thanks for the info, guys. "Too easy"... That would be nice just once for a change. Not exactly a banner year in the metro. One of my best spots for morels produced only a sliver of what I normally get. And in other spots I hit, I found them very sporadically scattered. I did have a couple decent days out, but the best day came a couple days late as most of the big yellows or tans I ound had already dried and started to decay. I'm hoping the chanterelle's prove to be an easy shroom to target until I get them figured out.

Thanks again for the timeframe input.

[Steve Foss]

We haven't noticed a difference this year over past years as far as morel numbers go. Probably if we were hard at it we'd see more of a change.

[jigginjim]

Has anyone found them lately in the Park Rapids areas? how late in the summer can you find them? Newbie, may look at some new areas near metro, but have not been out yet, am i too late?

[Matt Breuer]

I saw one post on Facebook from a "friend" in the Metro who picked a dozen 2 days ago. He said they were dry and basically done.

The Park Rapids area is good. I hunt them NE and E of there, and have done well. I know another guy who hunts them N and NW of PR and does well also. I didn't even bother heading that way this year, though I maybe should've....

Asparagus is just about done up here too... going to be a long wait for the berries!