I think it's just been a bad year cause of the hot cold hot cold, plus we had a mild winter. I was out there every day looking from February to the first week of April and found one lonely morel, however I seen a post by a seemingly knowledgeable & experienced mushroom hunter in one of the Georgia posts, on the 18th of April, where he's talking about since the weather's gotten more consistent he was going out looking, so I thought about checking my spots one more time but the woods have gotten so thick I'm concerned that I wouldn't notice a snake in all the tripping and may pops and everything that is now in full growth... I will let you know if I see anything today, let us know if you find any, please. If you dint mind me asking, about what part of Alabama are you hunting? I am in Decatur, hopefully Tennessee this time next year God bless you, and God bless everyone! Even if this year isn't what we hoped for, I believe this coming winter is going to be a real big harsh one, so next year should be a real good morel season!
It's too late in my opinion... I didn't even try to get up in the woods, but the edges tell me it was over before it began this season. I would get an earlier start next year though, maybe as early as late February, to at least see where the prime habitats are going to likely be.
It was an awful season for most across the deepsouth. I hunt metro bham and just developed some good areas in 2014 and 2015. Both 2014 and 2015 found several hundred per year. Looked in all the same areas at least a dozen times from march 1- april 15 this year and omly 12 morels, found during march 19- april 2. The opinion is split between me and my hunting partner as to the csuse. He blames a 39 degree daytime raiin of 1.3 inches on March 3rd. I blame the December weather where the soil got to below 50 degrees then back to the mid 50s and did this soil up and down 3 separate times during December before finally chilling below 50 on Jan 1st for the duration of the winter. 53 degree soil seems to be the consensus trigger point and they may have been ready to almost fruit in December snd then aborted leaving few underground for March. We will never know for sure but we know it was B A D year.
