There is a lot going on right now and I have terrific choices, at least they are as I pen this but probably not by the time my typed words become newsprint. What I‘m really saying is that it’s a coin flip decision on what to do and the options include turkey hunting, mushroom hunting, and fishing. Being that fishing has a much longer season it’s a back burner option right now.

On this particular outing I started out turkey hunting, and it turned into a mushroom hunt when the turkeys wouldn’t cooperate. That’s the exact opposite of what happened last week when I started off mushroom hunting and a gobble caused those plans to change. I came home from that mushroom/turkey hunt empty-handed. I hoped my luck was about to change with this turkey/mushroom hunt.

When the gobbling stopped and the hunt entered that time slot called late morning, I bagged turkey hunting for the day and started hunting morels I had a pre-determined destination in mind. There was a spot I hit last year that was almost the motherlode of morels. The reason that it wasn’t was because most of the ‘shrooms were dried out and past their prime. If every mushroom would have been good I couldn’t have consumed them all. The forest floor was full of Wisconsin spring gold; I had just gotten there too late.

I didn’t need to mark the spot with a waypoint in onX because the cluster of bark shedding elms were so obvious. Along the way I was encouraged by some signs that my timing was better this year. Those signs included blooming lilacs, dandelions that had gone to seed, a huge belly doe that looked like she was going to drop a fawn or two at any second, and full umbrella may apples.  The cosmic tumblers of the morel mushroom hunting universe appeared to be aligned.

I slipped under the first dying elm and used my hiking stick to sweep the underbrush aside and there it was, with angels singing, I found my first morel of the year. It was standing straight and clean alongside it’s identical sibling just 10 inches away. I pulled out my oversized Swiss army knife (which I’ve had for decades) and clipped the mushrooms just above ground level. Before I finished that I spotted two more and my morel meal was taking shape.

I eased around the dead elm triangle of trees and when it was all said and done, I had a dozen or so decent morel mushrooms. For good measure, as I was leaving the woods, I also grabbed a pheasant back mushroom just to fill out the bag.  

Later that night I cooked up my mushrooms and they were just as good as I remembered them being from last spring. I always think that spring arrives when I have my first batch of morels and it was worth the time and effort. I guess when it comes right down to it, if I had my choice between a meal of wild turkey or a meal of morel mushrooms, I’m picking morels. If I’m admitting that, I guess I’m also saying I would rather find morels than bagging a tom turkey. Yeah, I’m good with that. 

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