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2023 Morels Season

8414 Views 79 Replies 24 Participants Last post by  Ferris
Well, its 2023 and its warm here in Texas. Getting plenty of rain on the Eastern side of the state. If this weather pattern keeps up, we should be finding morels in February. Its happened to me once before. Hope all in Texas has a good season.
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And so it begins! I'm up in MN so I have oh about 5 months yet. LOL. Let to Morel dreams start.
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I can't say I have wasted time in the woods already looking for morels, but I have found some Lions Maine and quite a few areas where the oysters have been growing good. No morels yet....more so wishful thinking I'd see one.
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Here in South Central Wisconsin we finally got some actual snow on the ground. Got about 6 to 7 inches Saturday. Been a very mild winter here a couple of 2 inch snowfalls, and a couple dustings and that is it. We have had plenty of rain though which is odd for here. The other thing about a week to a week and a half ago I was finding nightcrawlers which I've never seen in January before. But I have a feeling it will be like last year for us a cold spring at least that is what they are predicting. Just hope we don't get that week of 90 plus with no rain again. But I think you all down south will have a early and great season.
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How has the weather been looking down there? They got a find yesterday in Georgia!! I imagine you should be finding in the next 3 weeks hopefully!!
We’re getting good rain today in Houston area and it looks even heavier up north. Curious if it’s time up there for morels to start poppin! Anyone go looking yet in north east TX?
I have been looking in my early spots but still nothing yet. Weather and rain have been right for an early season.
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I think this year will be a better year for morels at least in the DFW area. We've had some decent rainfall this winter and might get more. I don't normally start looking until the first week in March. We've got warm temps coming which is a good sign. I have yet to find my first morel in Texas. Been looking for years and haven't found one. Either they aren't common around this area or I just wasn't looking in the right places. Been finding a lot of oyster mushrooms. I may have to harvest some of those before I start looking for morels. Never tried oyster mushrooms before. Are they any good to eat?
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I think this year will be a better year for morels at least in the DFW area. We've had some decent rainfall this winter and might get more. I don't normally start looking until the first week in March. We've got warm temps coming which is a good sign. I have yet to find my first morel in Texas. Been looking for years and haven't found one. Either they aren't common around this area or I just wasn't looking in the right places. Been finding a lot of oyster mushrooms. I may have to harvest some of those before I start looking for morels. Never tried oyster mushrooms before. Are they any good to eat?
Very good
I'm in Central TX and haven't seen anything yet. Anybody willing to take a Veteran out and show me around?
False morel Terrestrial plant Mushroom Natural landscape Agaricaceae

Found the first one today on my early spot. More rain in the forecast for today so it should be ON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Technically this is the first find of 2023....all others found are fake news!!!!
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Congratulations. I live in Centeral Tx. Do you think foraging around temple area would be good?
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Found the first one today on my early spot. More rain in the forecast for today so it should be ON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Technically this is the first find of 2023....all others found are fake news!!!!
Nice work, geologist! Always look forward to your first find. I’ll be hunting south of Dallas this weekend.
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Congratulations. I live in Centeral Tx. Do you think foraging around temple area would be good?
Yes…in a good year picking in central Texas can be great. In a bad year, experienced pickers get little or none. No idea what this year holds, but it’s time to get out there. Check out the ‘22 TX thread or maybe even earlier. You’ll be looking for cedars/junipers in limestone soil, which is different from many areas.
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I live in East Central Texas and this will be my first year hunting morels, would you please share some tips on where to look? Thank you.
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I live in East Central Texas and this will be my first year hunting morels, would you please share some tips on where to look? Thank you.
Walk. Walk a lot. Learn to identify trees. Learn to identify what stage of health a particular tree is in. Research. Lots of research. Pay attention to the woods, which plants, shrubs, bushes trees are progressing into spring first. Learn about microclimates and elevation. Study which areas warm up first such as south facing slopes at higher terrain where night time temps don’t dip as low as the valley. Walk, look and learn. A few days can make a huge difference from one area to the next, even though they may be only a few hundred yards apart
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Forecast is looking IMPECCABLE for North Texas over the coming days. A few warm days to get things started, then it cools way down and stays that way through mid-month, with several chances for rain. I hate predicting good or bad years, because there's a lot more to it than JUST the spring temps and rainfall...but high early spring temps and low rainfall will absolutely kill our season in Texas, so the spring weather forecast IS behaving for us. Good luck, everyone, and be safe! Copperheads will be lurking. Wild sows will have piglets to protect. Poison ivy and ticks will soon be out in force.

For you newbies, the trees in Texas to identify are juniper (commonly but erroneously called "mountain cedar" and super easy to identify), elms (they are among the first to send out greenery in the canopy and have a distinctive, graceful, vase-like shape to their branching trunks and bark that is easy to identify, and if they're not leafing already, it's too early in your area), cottonwood (the biggest trees around, usually, with chunky bark), and ash (have distinctive, deep X or diamond patterns to their bark). Hilltops will typically fruit first, as their soil warms first. Valley bottoms, and thick juniper stands that keep the ground shaded for longer will fruit later in the season.

Pick your way through the forest, looking carefully at the ground for a disruptive pattern. I like to look "across" the forest floor, rather than "straight down" at it, even getting down on my hands and knees and looking horizontally toward the horizon. The low-angle light of morning and evening can make them glow like lanterns. You may have to walk miles and miles before you find your first one, but when you do, stop and look around carefully...often they grow in troops. Look up at the trees in the immediate area, and take note of what the ground looks like...the leaf litter, undergrowth, etc. Notice which direction the slope is facing or how the sun is falling on the ground. All of that is a "pattern" that can help you locate other mushrooms in similar areas around that same time. (The pattern will change, however, as the season progresses...new trees and orientations will take over as early spots finish.) Stressed-out trees in the process of dying can produce bumper crops, but if you spend all your time looking for dying trees, you'll miss the more scattered morels that are hiding under healthy trees. Not EVERY target species of a dying tree produces morels, just as not every living target species tree hosts them.

But the SINGLE most important thing to do is to walk, walk, walk. And walk the same areas over and over again, throughout the season. Don't spread your effort across too many different areas, or you'll miss the window when that particular area fruits. It's better to get to know a handful of areas and their patterns, than to bounce from place to place across March, looking fruitlessly. (You'll be in that spot too early or too late, and you'll have missed the morels that fruit there while you're looking somewhere else.)

If it's a good season (and you'll know it is by the reports of findings here), you'll find them if you focus on a few areas and visit them often and look thoroughly. 10 miles of hiking in one area is better than 1 mile in 10 areas, in my opinion.

And also...stop frequently for a closer look. I think I've located morels more often while peeing than at any other time, because I've stopped and I'm looking more carefully. More seasoned foragers may prefer to cover lots of ground quickly until they locate one, and then stop and study the pattern. But beginners tend to be better served by moving slowly but steadily, looking carefully, and stopping often to look closer.

GOOD LUCK!!!
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Congratulations. I live in Centeral Tx. Do you think foraging around temple area would be good?
The hill area around Gatesville should be great.....if you can get access to them. I assume you are near Ft. Hood. Not sure what kind of access you still have on base but look under the cedars abd oak thickets there around the hills.
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I live in East Central Texas and this will be my first year hunting morels, would you please share some tips on where to look? Thank you.
Elms are the first go to trees for me. I see the early morels under them...then as the season matures, I go for red cedars and oaks in flat sandy bottoms. Always look near creek embankments as well.
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