BEDFORD — Mushroom hunting season is short, starting in April, and lasts only about a month. However, those hitting the woods in Southern Indiana are now beginning to find tasty morels.
As long as you are hunting for yourself and you are not going to sell them, you can hunt legally at:
- State Parks
- State Forests
- State Fish and Wildlife Areas
- State Recreational Areas
Private lands are another option many morel hunters take advantage of, but asking the landowner for permission beforehand is essential.
For morels to surface, soil temperatures must be between 50 and 60 degrees, and the earth can’t be too wet or dry. If the mayapples are up, so are morels.
Early-season morel hunters to focus on southward and westward slopes. They will have the warmest, early-season soil.
Morel hunters tend to find them near certain kinds of trees. Experts say sycamore, hickory, ash, and elm are four to focus on first, followed by fruit trees like apple trees. The Indiana Department of Natural Resources notes that beech-maple forests make fertile morel-hunting grounds.
Any mushroom hunter can tell you this. If you find one, you need to freeze and look around. You’re much more likely to see more.
Morels can range from thimble size to something resembling a soda can, although the larger ones are more rare.
Early-season morels are often black and about the size of your thumb. They are often first found near sycamore trees. Gray or yellow morels usually appear later in the season. Morels can have a growing season of about three weeks, but most don’t last that long.
Always identify a mushroom before harvesting it for food. If you cannot identify it, do not eat it, some mushrooms are toxic and a few can be fatal.
