[noskydaddy]

Howdy HOOSIERS!

Looking forward to this years hunt, but change is in the air. I am now married and bought acerage on a private lake. I'd call that change.

And, oh mama, if you could hear the stories of the fish in this lake! I have one acre on the lake (over 250 feet of frontage) and a few acres behind for a BarndOminium! Crystal clear waters with a spring and choice ice fishing.

Did my ship come in? Maybe! But what I really hope is it's the "100 year hunt" for morels this season. And other fungi like the elusive and conveted Black Trumpet. I'm starting to think 2018 and 2019 was a once in 100 years event for black trumpets! It's been slim Pickens since then, and how I've hunted. How I've dreamed. And, oh how I've struck out.

How's everybody doing?
I miss you all. I didn't post much because we were busy closing on the new property. I should be around more this season y'all! Come back.

 

[noskydaddy]

At least we have fishable ice this year in SW MI!

I read a MI.DNR report that said on average
only 1 in 2 seasons (50%) will have ice on inland lakes for the foreseeable future.

I fished once last year and none the
year before, and it wasn't because I didn't want to,
I just can't walk on water.

 

[noskydaddy]

Hello Friends…
Hope everyone had a great rest of the year…Another season is approaching around two and a half to three months till my areas start producing… Which I think all of us can agree is not soon enough!!!… So this year I’ve decided to do something about it… For the past couple of years by this time I would be getting ready to hit the road with my dog to head to Key West for a couple of weeks of house maintenance and fishing… This year I’m delaying the departure by a month or so to allow Georgia to start producing, so the plan is harvest Georgia on the drive down and take a couple of extra days on the drive back to harvest Georgia, Tennessee, and Kentucky around the beginning of April… Doing my homework right now to prepare a list of potential renegade stops with easy access to my route… I’m dying to eat fresh picked morels on the beach in Florida during winter!!!… Definitely running low on last years harvest compared to previous years, Frozen is the way to go for preserving for eating up till next years harvest (buying a chest freezer) but dehydration remains the best for long term up to twenty five years… Anyways sorry for the long post hope all is well… Take Care and Happy Hunting!!! View attachment 49905

My first year in retirement will be this South to North picking plan! Keep us posted buddy!

 

[noskydaddy]

Dang I had that crap twice this winter. Didn't think it was ever going away. Hope it gets better soon. I might venture out sometime this week just to see and find out how out of shape I really am. lol. Keep us posted !

I had that CRAP TWICE too! Mean little b*stard.

 

[noskydaddy]

A reliable friend found a small black today in SW MI.
It's his early moss spot and produces first.
Just a heads up crew!

 

[noskydaddy]

Hello hunters, writing in from Northern Indiana on the Michigan border. I’ve been reading this forum for a few years and learned a lot from you all. I’m writing to get some opinions. I’ve been hunting morels for the better part of a decade and getting better every year. I think training my eyes before each season has been an essential part of my process. I usually go hunt alone as I do not have many friends who are interested in mushrooms / willing to be hunched over in the rain for hours with me. I don’t have a lot of free time but during mushroom season I make time and definitely put in the work. That being said, I’ve never hit a jackpot. Never found a honey hole, at least before anyone else. I think my record for a season is 45 mushrooms. My main issue seems to be that I don’t have many spots to look. I live by a railroad track so I frequently will walk up and down a length of tracks and surrounding woods with no luck. I look in all of my local parks, along the creeks, in my friends yards… Etc. I’m always on Google Maps and trying to find wood to scour. My question for y’all is… What is the etiquette / law around searching the woods behind a business? Is this something you guys would do? There are patches of old growth behind a lot of businesses near me and I really don’t see a problem with parking my car and searching back there. I do feel the urge to be sneaky about this though which is an indicator that it’s wrong. However, I know I can’t be alone in feeling this way. There are public parks and nature preserves with more land near me, but those are the most obvious first place for people to look, and I’ve never been lucky enough to be one of the first in those places. Or it’s more marsh/bog type habitat. All opinions/advice are welcome.

Northern IN can be tough hunting as you're discovering due to population density, pollution, and general lack of natural resource. I'd recommend moving to Michigan. You won't be disappointed.

Railroad tracks: Avoid those at all costs because of the poisons they spray to keep weeds off and away from the tracks. I watched them spray from the train and it's horrendous the amount of poison being laid down constantly. To make matters worse, mushrooms bio-accumulate heavy metals. Bad stuff.

I would also advise against trespassing: That feeling you had about it feeling wrong? That is a feeling that will distract you from concentrating 100%. And you need all your focus for morels.

Maybe find a local mycology group to get connected with? Having a mentor can be very rewarding.
If all else fails, move! I would for mushrooms.

 

[noskydaddy]

Let's go HOOSIERS!

 

[noskydaddy]

More pictures of Lucy requested! @Kokomorel

 

[noskydaddy]

Lucy and I still finding nothing View attachment 50685 View attachment 50686 View attachment 50687 View attachment 50688

@Kokomorel HAHA thanks buddy! I like that dog!!

 

[noskydaddy]

Lucy’s supper and some pics she’s eating large mouth bass and shrooms she deserves it View attachment 50700 View attachment 50701 View attachment 50702 View attachment 50703

@Kokomorel - who is the other dog?

 

[noskydaddy]

View attachment 50656
❤🇺🇸🍄‍🟫🍄 Today's Finds

Those are some large tulip morels Holmes.

 

[noskydaddy]

Update on my new honey hole not so good, did find a few, homeowner seemed perplexed as 3-4 years ago they guy picking was finding sacks ,and she let the neighbor
lady come over and she said she had never seen a woods with so many, I talked to her about there are a lot of elms but they are all alive and not producing, she oh yea about 4-5 years ago they had about 30 big elms cut down because they were dying,,,,,,,,,, anyone else see what happened and what I missed out on? all I found were on sycamore's,

LANDOWNERS: "Leaves those dead elms alone! We don't need no early cut-downs, we don't need no tree control dun nuh nuh nuh. No Early cut downs in those elm trees...owners leave them trees alone." That Pink Floyd post got in my head. "How can you have any morels if you don't eat your meat?!"

 

[noskydaddy]

I don't know how long an elm will keep producing after it dies. I do a lot of hunting at my fish & game club. We have 2,200 acres and a bazillion dead elms! My first year hunting I beat my way through some God awful thickets to check a bunch of them and found nothing that first season! That summer I ran into one of the members that clued me in to the fact that morels grew on club grounds and he asked me how I did. When I told him he asked me if I had checked apple trees. When I said no he said, "Aw dude! You gotta check the apple trees!" I didn't know about the apple/morel connection at the time. He also told me that those old, bleached out elm snags wouldn't produce anything. Said I needed a recently dead one that still had some bark on it.

Well, I spotted one of those while pheasant hunting that winter and checked it the next spring. I checked it five times and eventually found about two dozen morels under it. Then the top half of it blew off in a winter storm, all the bark fell off the bottom half, and that was it. Never found another morel there. Of course, it could have been flushing morels before I ever found that tree.

ON DEAD AMERICAN ELMS...

I find that completely stripped elms almost certainly stop producing. And ones that had decent bark yet - but cracked in half - also petered out. A removed dead elm stops quickly too.

If they have bark, in my experience, they may produce (and often do). More bark is better. Less bark = less and less morels until zero.

I have a "bark-O-meter" in my notes when I mark a tree: 75% bark, 50% bark, etc. Size seems to play a key role too. Bigger seems better. But smaller can produce too.

Anyone else have thoughts on this?

 

[noskydaddy]

Did y'all get rain today???

 

[noskydaddy]

I agree with you the more bark the better. I like to get them when they turn red that’s usually the most productive in my experience

@Kokomojoe when what turns red, bud?

 

[noskydaddy]

I posted this on the MI board. I found 16 grays yesterday.
(Things looks really good if we get some sky water!)

They were starting to get dry but found them nonetheless.

Figured it will help people who travel to Pure Michigan to hunt.

 

[noskydaddy]

View attachment 50793
just left my spot I find tulip morels at around some down cherry trees. It’s a good year for that patch.

Tulip morels are HUGE this year!

 

[noskydaddy]

Ok, I saw something the other day that really threw me off: How many of you actively hunt LIVING Elm trees and commonly score morels?

 

[noskydaddy]

I have one on private land that is where 90 percent of my shrooms have come from this year not saying much because I have not found a lot of morels this year

Wow that's amazing. None??

 

[noskydaddy]

\
I have a small grove of live Elms that produce regularly, as I posted a few days ago. They are some of the latest I have found for decades, regularly. Since I don't hunt every day they may be fresh or so old that I hang them up in saplings to spread their spores on the wind. They only produce 1 or 2 per tree. When 1 of them is killed there should be a large flush there. But my age probably will not allow me to be there when that happens. lol. I know every host tree on my multiple woods routes and always check every one for damage or any other sign of stress to them. Just a hopefully helpful tidbit. Good luck up there!

This is really interesting to hear. I can't say I've ever found one near a living elm. So rare in fact I stopped even checking. I have some large elms too. (And I see plenty of small elm groves too) Weird. I guess I'll check more often. Thanks everyone.


P.S. - I looked up American Elm on IUSN Red List and see its listed as Endangered Species!