The Seasoned Morel Warrior
As I said in “To Die For…Literally,” morels are usually found in heavy timber and along creek and river banks. This is fairly hazardous territory and not for the faint of heart! My war wounds include gashes and scratches inflicted by barbed wire fences and thorns from trees and bushes; and a small knot on my head from walking crouched over with my head down, then raising up and hitting a low-hanging tree branch. Ouch!
Then there are ticks! When we arrive home after a hunt, we strip down and leave the clothes outside until they are laundered. Any crawling or embedded ticks are removed and killed; then it’s time to hit the shower. The next major project is de-ticking Cricket. Even though she wears a flea and tick collar, she still picks up a bunch of the little hitch-hiking blood suckers!
I strapped on my camera so I could share pictures from the hunt this year.
Most of the time, we use the Suzuki mini-truck, aka “Morel-Mobile,” to get to the hunting locations.
“Find ‘em, Girl!” I wish Cricket could point morels like she does pheasant and quail!
Let the hunt begin!
Branches on sticker bushes formed a canopy over a small area where I had to crawl in on hands and knees to harvest half a dozen morels.
Double-bonus!
Omigosh! Quintuple-bonus—this was a first for me!
Cricket poses with our bags. Mine is the one on the left. Bill considerately sent me into an area he thought would produce a mother lode of morels!
We dumped Bill’s bag into mine and conducted a weigh-in: 5 pounds, 9.7 ounces. Not bad!
Here’s the day’s total haul spread out on a tarp. The three light-colored morels in the upper right corner came out of the ground that day.
One of the best parts of the whole morel mushroom experience is that now I can enjoy eating them without worrying about whether or not I will wake up the next morning!