Morel Mid-Season 2017

Season so far:

Thursday, April 13th – 4.2 Miles – zero morels
Friday, April 14th – 3.59 Miles (WV) – 1 morel
Monday, April 17th – 4.38 miles (PA) – 8 morels
Thursday, April 20th – 4.35 miles (WV) – 10 morels
Monday, April 25th – 9.21 miles (WV) – 142 morels
Thursday, April 27th – 6.34 miles (WV) – 56 morels

Most of the morels are around poplar and black ash trees so far. Around old logs is another place I’ve been finding them. You have to keep walking to find patches. They are mostly in places where I’ve not found many before.

2017 Morel Season

I’ve been hearing and seeing pictures of area finds. I myself, haven’t been out to look but I plan to go over the weekend. It seems, in this area, Early black, large black morels and grays are up. According to weather reports, it is supposed to get cold again next week. In my opinion, this could mess up this year’s black morel growing season. But still: Get out there and look!

Verified finds this week by others:
Clarke County, Virginia. 2 early black,
Jefferson County, WV – 1 gray, Approx. 50 -60 large black
Washington County, MD – 11 gray, 7 early black, 3 large black

Please comment on your finds below.

May 2013 – morel find

May 2013: Walking a trail, we found some morels standing 6 to 10 inches tall. I remember finding them. They were standing in a small ditch where water would drift after a rain, next to old rotten logs and ash trees. The morels not bagged in the picture were the group found. Although they were large in size, they  have a chewiness.
It’s time to scout new areas, this should get me a little more motivated.

Winter sowing – 2016

I’ve started the winter sowing. I have about 12 milk jugs set out. Tomato seed (Brandywine, Roma, Beefsteak, Pittman Valley, and Pink Boar). I am saving some of the jugs for winter sowing peppers and marigold more towards the end of March. JUST AN UPDATE

For those that don’t know what winter sowing is:
A page where I took pictures of preparing milk jugs for winter sowing

Put some potting soil in the jug, ice cream stick with what is in the jug, remove the cap, duct tape around the jug where you cut it open and sit it outside. (This is the best method I’ve used thus far)

Plants from winter sowing

When I first started winter sowing, I got about a 70 percent germination rate. I think it was because I used string on 3 corners vs putting duct tape around the jugs. (See picture using string) This left the jugs to dry out and lose heat at a faster rate.

I’ll post some pictures in a few more days.

MOREL SEASON COMING:
-2 months to morel season!!! I am targeting April 22nd as a “start hunting morels” date.  The start date has been all over the place the last 5 years, it’s anyone’s guess. The 2012 season started March 22nd!

Morel hunting – 2015

05/07/15 – 241 morels – Pa

First morel found in WV on 04/27/15.
5  days of hunting = 3x WV, 2x Pa – 04/27, 4/30,  05/04, 05/07, and 05/08.
Total morels found = 388. 334 were found in Pa and 54 were found in WV.

Although it was a bad year, I concentrated on dead standing trees (Poplar, ash, and elm) which is where they seemed to be this year.

2014 Morel Season: 6 months late in posting

We ate the last of the morels from 2014 a few weeks ago and it reminded me that I didn’t post 2014 morel hunts. Just to keep my running records going, I’ll add the numbers.
Pa: 49 morels (went one time)
Va: 0 morels
WV: 1,634
Total for 2 of us: approximately 3,200 = 32 gallons

Basically the numbers tell the story that we spend all year hunting in various places in WV. There are no pictures to post because I simply did not take any. The biggest finds this year for everyone I talked with were in Maryland, close to the Va border, and in WV. Pa was the worst place to go. The biggest producer in variety was the “cappie” followed by the black morel. The yellow was the most elusive, which I contribute to it being a cold spring.

2014 was the best year we’ve had since I’ve started posting morel hunting, followed by 2008.

2015 season starts in 6 months! I’m looking forward to it! Hopefully it will be another repeat of 2014.

Late morel season: 2 more times out

This years season I ended with 446 morels. We collected close to 11 gallons this year. I’m sorry for such a late post but I’ve just not had the chance to post.
The morels to the left we found (May 18, 2013) with 7 others. There were 2 this size. I doesn’t take many of these to fill a bag. We were finding a lot of nice sized yellow morels other than these. I think we ended the day with a total of 153 morels (mine count was 70).
One thing I’ve finally realized this year was that yellow morel patches and black morel patches grow differently. Most yellow morel patches will produce all of their morels within a day or two while black morel patches keep producing over a week or two.
I think I prefer the taste of a black morel over a yellow morel. The black morels seem to be a little more tender as well. I’ll leave that up to each individual. 🙂
This year, we found 2 of these trees with morels crowded around them. The first tree had 36 yellow morels around it. This one (below) had 21. Yes, I remembered to take a picture of this one (after a reminder). After some research, I think it is a young ash tree. Click on the picture and find all of the morels!

We went to WV again on Tuesday afternoon (May 21st, 2013) and found about 50 more.
Morel season is officially over for us now. I promise this time. LOL

Ending Morel Season 2013 with 350 morels found

Those 350 was just my count. I figure Dave was around 250 for the year. This year has been another weird year. Walk until you find nice patches. Hit and miss.
I waited until the end of the season to post. I’ve been devoting ALL of my time to hunting, gardening, and everything that spring brings. Here it goes!
Today we headed to WV. We left with about a gallon and a half each (2 of us). My count was 126.
Mostly cappies and yellow with a lot of old black morels. We ran into other morel hunters whom didn’t look like they were doing as well but I chalk that up to inexperience and not knowing where the morel patches actually are. 🙂
Only a few times in a morel hunters time do you find a LOT of morels in one small area. I could kick myself for not taking a picture at the time but we found 36 yellow morels around a tree in about a 2 foot round area. We found a total of exactly 50 on that hillside and split them between us. Nice ending to the day.

We saw a nice big snake in a grassy area. I’ll post a picture and see if anyone knows what kind of snake this is. I’ll tell the rest of the story in comments.

May 2, 2013 (Yesterday) – Pennsylvania – 93 Morels
No one else to go with me. I was bored so I took a lot of pictures with my phone and was sending them to my wife. Kind of felt like she was there. 🙂  I walked for eight and a half hours. Oddly, I couldn’t find anything low, they were all up high.  90% of these I found on one hillside. Below is a slideshow of the day.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

I’m not going to post the beginning of the year in Virginia, Pennsylvania, or West Virginia. The best day I had other than the 2 days above was a count of 75 in West Virginia last week.

6 Morels: Pennsylvania – April 18, 2013

Forgot to take pictures today. I found 3, Dave found 3. We walked for 3 1/2 hours. It’s not looking good.  Hopefully next week will be the big week. If it isn’t, looks like it just may be another bum year.

9 Morels: April 17, 2013 Virginia

We found 9 morels in Virginia. I found 5 and Dave found 4.
They were all fresh. It rained last night which made a few finally pop. Pictured left is the last one I found. They were mostly all next to rocks. I hunt close to the rocks early in the season because they hold heat overnight and moisture underneath. We found all of them up high.

We’re heading to Pennsylvania this morning to look for some early risers. I’ll be using the same tactics. Look high and look in rocky areas. I think we will be just catching the beginning of the season. We’ll see what today brings.