Morel Reports

[shortfatguy]

Watch out for those ticks guys! I went in to the clinic today since I had a deer tick get me and it developed a rash. Antibiotics for three weeks.

[jkcmj]

Picked a pile after work today...found one really nice clump of 15 yellows off one stem.

[Bigbuck08]

Nice Pile! Crazy when you find them tight together like that, should be good picking this weekend! good luck to all

[MrSchrute]

Nice finds! I was out in the metro yesterday and only found two. I did find more ticks that shrooms though.

Anyone have any prediction/suggestions on the Duluth area this weekend?

I am forced into being up there this weekend for a wedding. Looking to get out and either fish or to find some Morels.

[dawg57]

found 6 lbs of those juicy tasty morsels they call MORALS Mushrooms one of GODS many treasures that he has given us to enjoy... Gotta love him for that huh... from Dawg57...

[leroy77]

Muskie, I went out after work last night for about 2 hours and ended up with 39. Some of them were kind of small but about 20 of them were about 3-4 inches. Headed out of town for the long weekend and i didn't want to leave them and have them go bad.

[AndyM]

Let's say a guy finds oodles of them. Where's the best place to try and sell some?

[jkcmj]

In SE MN we have tons of options to sell them commercially. Eckert's Apple orchard across from Winona on the WI side buys them ($13/lbs), Webke fur in LaCrosse, WI buys them, in the Rochester, MN area Michael's restraunt in town buys them and nearby in Mantorville the Hubble House buys them.

My brother can't pick enough to fill his orders off of craigslst adds he puts on for $20 a pound.

[Mid-Lake Rock]

This morning I went to my best metro spot for yellows and found nothing. A friend got some yellows in the west metro, yesterday.

I really want some ramps, however I never seem to find them. Hope my luck changes this weekend.

[Matt Breuer]

Note on selling, you HAVE to be licensed to sell morels in MN.

[highlife4me]

I don't sell them. I just charge them a finders fee.

[john.wells]

I don't sell them. I just charge them a finders fee.

well played....

[john.wells]

I went out for the first time ever tonight and quickly found about a dozen, all around probably the only elm tree I have on my 10 acres. For the folks looking for info on where to look, I would say think grouse hunting- shaded tangled stuff between swamp and high ground, where the dirt is moist and black, but drained where nothing is pooled. I have heard from a good friend of mine that his step-son has seen a guy mowing down morels in his yard without knowing what they were, but he seems to find them in more of the "grousy" areas.

[Lunker]

Folks are getting $17-20 a pound around here. The markets then turn around and sell for 25 or so a lb.

We went out again this morning. Picked around 2 lbs. Found more then twice that many but most were getting dried out, moldy, or bug-ridden. The end is near...

[flipper]

Note on selling, you HAVE to be licensed to sell morels in MN.

I found a couple dozen greys last night before the rain. Got checked by the morel police as I was leaving the woods. I told them these were just for personal use so they let me go, but they said they will be watching me very closely. Best be careful out there.

[Matt Breuer]

Lucky it wasn't the smartass police....

[Tom Sawyer]

I don't sell them. I just charge them a finders fee.

My finders fee has been running between 18-25 depending on the risks I had to smuggle them into town.

[flipper]

Lucky it wasn't the smartass police....

Touche

For those interested here is a basic guide to selling mushrooms in Minnesota

http://www.health.state.mn.us/foodsafety/foods/mushroom.html

It sounds as if you don't need to be licensed if you picked them off your own land "Individuals that harvest and sell mushrooms grown only on their own or rented land may not be required to be licensed, but must still comply with all other applicable rules and regulations, including documentation of training as a mushroom identification expert."

I'm not sure what this training involves.

I only pick what we eat ourselves anyway so I'm not too worried about it.

[DARK30]

Actually spent some time not looking at rocks.

Peeek!

Oh and...

[Stringerless!]

Dug around Milaca today on brother in laws 40 acres. Tons of dead elm and not a thing. Checked around all dead or sickly trees of all kinds. Was really bummed at not finding a one. Such good looking spots. Whole family had never heard of such a thing. Too early ? Anyone else finding any in that area ?

[jkcmj]

I found a pile of them again today, maybe 5-6 lbs. Lot of nice big grays.

I even picked up a cool little shed antler on my way out...still picking the ticks off as I type this...

Down at Wiebke Fur they were down to $8 a pound for them...hardly worth selling them, but I needed to make room in the fridge.

[JIvers]

Some pictures from today in Fillmore and Houston Counties:

I found about a dozen fresh yellows in Houston County while trout fishing this morning--those were a bonus.

In my first plot of timber in Fillmore County, I found a total of about fifty to sixty yellows, all right around two separate dead elms. In between those two finds I walked for probably two hours without seeing a morel.

That is typical for this timber, which never produces big spread-out patches. I usually hit the jackpot on two or three trees, seldom do any of those trees produce anything after that one big payoff, and most of the good-looking spots I check have nothing. Below is a photo of what I found after not having found a morel for an hour or more. There were more mushrooms than I could get in the photo.

My other patch of timber a couple miles away in Fillmore County has heavier clay soil than the sandy ground in the first plot, and more scrubby cherry and elm trees. This second piece of timber produces morels in twos, threes and fours, usually spread out rather than being tightly bunched around a single tree. Those patches keep producing the same steady numbers of morels year after year--no walking and looking for an hour without finding any. That was the case today, too. I found my biggest yellows there, including this one:

I'm going back out tomorrow, and that will be out for the year. Here is my total for today, with some bonus wild asparagus thrown in:

As an aside, usually the asparagus is just getting started when the big yellows are at their peak in my Fillmore County patches, but not this spring. The asparagus had mostly branched out and started making seeds. Had I been up here a week ago, I'd have had a lot more asparagus, but few morels.

[JIvers]

I found maybe forty morels today, all in my timber that produces steady groups of two or three morels in the same general area year after year. There were some nice yellows among them.

Below are a couple bonus finds from this weekend. The first two pictures are a good example of why feral hogs are a bad thing:

I don't know if these tusks and the jawbone they were still attached to came from a boar we dumped in the timber two decades ago, or someone else dumping it more recently, but those tusks were large, and they were still sharp.

Below is the best bonus find. I found a few deer carcasses like I do every year, but this one had a nice rack attached. The missing beam was still there, but apparently broke off when the deer hit the ground.

There are more 'shrooms still in those woods, but I am done until next year.

[leech~~]

Had the day off and found good mix of grays and Yellows, although I think my spots are winding down for the year. It was a pretty good year. Fun to be out in the woods and have a few dinners worth of Morels! Now I have got to spend some time getting some Eye's to put them on top of!

[Matt Breuer]

What area are you in, leech?