South facing hills are ideal as they tend to have the longest amount of sunlight to add additional heating aside from ambient air temps. But any area that is somewhat open and produces can be ideal, just depends on how early. I waited until we had soil temps in or near the 50's for about a week.
I think the key for finding early morels is to know ahead of time where they are. I rarely go out on a whim in the early season in hopes of finding them. You can do it, and I'm sure many do, but I like to go where I already know where to look. Some of the early ones, as I posted a picture in the central Illinois thread, can be as small or smaller than your finger nail. So having a good idea exactly where to look is a great advantage in finding them. I usually find my first ones near the same tree every year, today I found all of these up the hill a bit around a larger tree.
I also should add that I'm finding small greys, a lot of the early finds people report are blacks. I don't find a lot of blacks, have one area I can find them by its usually later in the season for some reason. So I can't speak too much on them and exactly where to look and such, it is on my bucket list to find a good black spot though.
