In spite of several bleak springs — 2021, 2022 and 2023 — wild morel mushroom piking remains resilient. Awful was the most used verb describing those previous years by pickers and mushroom buyers.
This mold’s allure still escapes elucidation, even rationalization, however.
Taste of the morsel, its appearance, and even the difficulty finding the fungus for mere photographs seem strong enough to keep long walkers trudging through all types of weather, terrain and vegetation.
Disappointments during the last several years remain in minds and excuses are easy to come by for dwindling bags and baskets filled with what mycologists call fungal fruiting bodies, or mushrooms for short.
Gatherers are still willing, even encouraged.
The driving force quickly turns on practical and immediate anxieties of fungus-worthy elm and apple trees.
Will 2024 materialize into bumper finds, enough to sell, barter, dry, freeze, and photograph, or will growth be a sputter compared to the excitement a decade or ago? It doesn’t matter because the quiet and secret pursuit focuses more on finding than complaining during May.
Deer hunters could take a page from novice mycologists who could say “when difficultly persists, the persistent remain optimistic.”
Large, mature American elms dwindling; remnant apple orchards decomposing; and the fungi’s biological wars with garlic mustard continue to take tolls.
Old advice, advice common to wild food gathering, fishing and hunting are helpful and encouraging.
Something as simple as knowing the prey and how to hunt it help.
Morels are fungi, not plants. Like periodic cicadas, most of the time this fungus lives underground, connected to plant roots giving and receiving nutrients and moisture.
There is a word for all this life: mycorrhizae, which translates to fungus-root.
Usually if an elm, apple, oak, ash, or pine dies, there is little chance of the fungus living very long. But before Morchella dies, it uses its DNA-coded information to reproduce sexually in the only way possible. Spores, somewhat like seeds, are produced in great numbers above ground and then blow in the wind to other locations.
This connection between a tree and a fungus means find the dead tree and hope to find the mushroom.
Now is the time to pick, not ponder. Be positive, not pessimistic.
“Oyster mushrooms are a good alternative,” suggests Wayne Whitemarsh, an outdoorsman in Sauk City, who has seen that species already. He’s good at many outdoors pursuits. During the third turkey hunting period he killed two toms and the same day, having purchased an additional permit after being awarded the same hunting period by application.
More and more turkey hunters have found late morning and early afternoon are some great times to get a gobbler alone and coming to yelps and clucks.
Kate Mosley, at Kate’s Bait near Governor Dodge State Park along State Highway 23, was hunting with her husband. They called in a nice pair of toms, Mosley shot one and her husband put his calls away, having killed a bird during an earlier period.
“The other tom hung around quite a while and all we could do was to wait for him to wonder off,” Mosley said.
Doug Williams, at D W Sports Center in Portage, Wisconsin, is blessed with true tales told by customers.
“An 80-year-old gentleman shot a turkey and everyone was excited for him and happy to see him able to add a spring turkey to the fall bird he shot in 2023,” Williams said.
Reports of a few Ruby-throated Hummingbirds have been heard. Many bird feeding stations have blaze orange feeders and orange halves to attract Orioles.
Showy tree and shrub flowers are opening on crabapples and redbuds with tulip trees to follow shortly.
Gray squirrels are having a seed day in maples and elms, sometimes having to hang by their hind legs to get dry fruit containing one seed.
Most eaglets are now clearly visible as parents feed bits of fish, venison and squirrel in the growing birds’ mouths.
The 2024 Wisconsin elk hunt application, costing $10, ends May 31.
Applications can be filed through the WDNR’s GoWild account or through a licensed agent. Hunts will take place in the Clam Lake and Black River Falls elk gangs during 2024 fall seasons.
— Jerry Davis is an Argyle native and a freelance writer who lives in Barneveld. He can be reached at sivadjam@
mhtc.net or at
608-924-1112.
