OF THE OUTDOORS Wild Things: Morel ‘Shrooms| GARY HOWEY...

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BY GARY HOWEYHartington, Neb.

Each spring, about this time,men, women and children are in-fected with an infliction, one wherethere’s no known cure.

It’s a strange infliction, one thatshows up for only a short period oftime when conditions are right, end-ing almost as quickly as it begun.

The cause of this infliction is afungi known as morel mushroomsand once they start to appear, menand women will leave their home,jobs and family, heading for theriver bottoms, island and hills insearch of them.

What causes this infliction, ismorels, which are found throughoutour area, are easy to recognize, deli-cious to eat,making themthe most popu-lar of all wildmushroomsought after inthe upper Mid-west.

They’reelongated withan off white tobrown stemand a crownthat’s coveredwith whiteridges and darkbrown pits,varying fromoff-white to gray in color. The easi-est way to identify a morel is to lookfor a mushroom growing on theground resembling a cone shapedbrain.

They appear in the spring whentemperatures reach around 50 de-grees, with the majority of thembeing found when temperatures hitthe mid 50’s.

How does one know when tostart searching for morels, well,Mother Nature gives us several indi-cators.

Old timers say that mushroomhunters won’t need to start thinkingabout hunting until the oak treebuds are in the mouse or squirrel’sear stage.

What, I can honestly say that I’venever known anyone who’s takenthe time to measure a squirrel ormouse’s ear, but I’ve been told thatthey are about half the size of yoursmallest fingernail.

In our area, if you don’t want torun down a mouse or squirrel andmeasure their ears, there are morevisual indicators to help us knowwhen to start looking.

If you have a lilac bush in thearea, keep an eye on it, as whenthey’re blooming, it’s a good signthat you’ll find morels, while indica-tors include: when crab apple treesstart to bloom or around the weekof Mother’s Day.

Well, this year, the way theweather has been, if you wait untilMother’s day, I’ll bet the morel sea-son will be over.

Some hunters like to be morescientific and use the almanac to fig-ure out when morels will start to ap-pear. It’s said, if you look in thealmanac, taking the average date forthe last frost in your area and thenadd two weeks to that date, youshould be pretty close to the peakmorel season.

Moisture, sunshine along withwarmer temperatures have a lot todo with when morels appear as aweek of 55-60 degree daytime tem-peratures with no frost is gone orfreezing temperatures at night willgenerally be a good time start look-ing for morels.

Along with warm temperatures,moisture is also important. Manymushroom hunters say that thebest time to hunt for them would beafter a rain, when temperatures arearound 60 degrees with high humid-ity.

Morels will appear in areas thatwill warm up quicker and retainheat longer such as sandy areas,south facing slopes or in fields thathave been burnt recently.

One of the most asked questionspertaining to mushrooms is wheredo you find them?

The first morels are found on is-lands in the river, sandy areas andin fields with dead or dying trees.

My most successful hunt wasyears ago when they were removingtrees that had grown along the river,converting the fields from woodedareas to cropland in fields that had-n’t been planted yet as these fieldswas loaded with them.

The decaying roots from the oldelm and cottonwood trees that hadbeen grubbed out were ideal placesfor the morels to take root.

I’ve also found mushroomsaround older trees that had beengoing down hill for several years,eventually dying. Mushrooms seemto appear around these dead cot-tonwood and elm trees about thetime that their bark starts to fall off.

The first morel is always thetoughest to locate as they blendvery well with the forest floor andvegetated ground. Once you’ve

found one, take he time to kneeldown, looking closely becausemorels are like schools of fish,where you find one you generallyfind a bunch.

One thing is for certain when itcomes to finding morels; there areno set rules as to where the morelmight be found. Conditions changefrom day to day during the springand a hillside that was barren Mon-day may get a rain shower orwarmer temperatures, causing thehillside to be loaded with morels bymidweek.

My preferred method for locat-ing mushrooms isn’t real scientific;it’s the old ìwondering around aim-lesslyî method, where I head back tothe same general area where I’dfound them in past years while pick-ing my way through the vegetationuntil I spot my first one.

Once you’ve found them, it’s nota bad idea to kneel down, changingthe angle you’re looking, allowingyou to get a better view of the areaas many times as morels will be justpushing up through the leaves andcan be verily visible.

For years, morel hunters havehit the woods with bread sacks, icecream buckets and other non-porous containers. Some seem tobelieve these things have lead toless morel mushrooms.

Because mushrooms reproducethrough spores, which need to bereturned to the ground in order togrow and if they’re picked andplaces in a solid container like thosementioned above, we may be deny-ing the morels the opportunity todisperse their spores or to re-seedthe area.

In order to allow the morels tothrow their spores, it’s not a badidea to use collection bags that areporous such as onion bags or sometype of a bag that allows the spores

to be release back into the air. Mushroom hunters or

shroomers, the name given to thosewho hunt mushrooms in the southhave their own language and inmushroom hunters’ jargon, a bunchof morels is known as a ìmessî andonce you’ve found a mess of mush-rooms, you’ll need to clean them upand figure out the best way to pre-pare them.

Start by splitting the mushroomin half from the top to the bottomand rinse them off over runningwater as the crooks and crannies ofthe mushroom will contain sandand possibly insects. Once you’verinsed them thoroughly, let them setin water for a short period of time,which helps to flush sand, debris orstubborn insects out of them.

You won’t want to soak them in\water for an extended period oftime, as they’ll become spongy.Once you’ve got them cleaned,comes the best part of morel hunt-ing begins, preparing and eatingthem.

There are numerous ways to pre-pare morels including, fried and inmushroom soup. My favorite waysto prepare morels is to fry them upin some type of batter.

If you have a favorite fish batter,it will work well, if not, one can memade by combining equal partsbeaten eggs with milk and crushedup saltine or you favorite crackers.

After you’ve rinses them, let themushroom drip off on a dry toweland then dip in the mixture madefrom the beaten eggs, milk andcrushed crackers, coating themthoroughly.

Place the coated morel into apan and cook in butter until crisp.Don’t over cook them, as they’ll dryout.

Like anything, morels are bestwhen prepared fresh, but if youhave a good mushroom hunting sea-son and would like to preserve orsave some of them for future use,mushrooms can be dehydrated orfrozen.

Morel hunting is excellent waysto get outside and to not only enjoythe outdoors but to also enjoy oneof the many bounties Mother Natureprovides.

This spring while you’re outscouting for turkeys, walking alongthe creek, river or hillsides lookaround as morels can be foundthroughout our area and you neverknow where they might appear.

Gary Howey, Hartington, Neb.,is the President of OutdoorsmenProductions LLC, Producer/Host ofthe Outdoorsmen Adventures tele-vision series and the Co-Host ofOutdoor Adventures Radio.

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PHOTO: DUSTIN LUTTMorels come in all shapes and sizes, with the many of those found in theupper Midwest varying from light brown to dark brown in color

OF THE OUTDOORS | GARY HOWEY

Wild Things: Morel ‘ShroomsBriefs: GF&P To Issue 10 AnyWhitetail Licenses At Custer

Gary

HOWEY

BROOKINGS (AP) — The SouthDakota Game, Fish and Parks Com-mission is issuing 10 any whitetailand two any deer licenses in CusterState Park for the 2012 season.

Game officials say the seasonwas added as a management tookto reduce the population of white-tail deer in the park from a high ofmore than 800.

The number is currently around650, so commissioners at the de-partment’s suggestion are eliminat-ing the 35 one-tag antlerlesswhitetail deer licenses for 2012.

The season in Custer State Parkwill run Nov. 3-16.

Nebraska’s Sunshine Bot-toms Boat Launch Closed

LYNCH, Neb. (AP) — The Sun-shine Bottoms Wildlife ManagementArea boat launch on the MissouriRiver in northern Nebraska will re-main closed until construction iscomplete.

The Nebraska Game and ParksCommission says a new boat rampand parking lot are being built andboundary fencing is being installed.

The area is about three mileseast and four miles north of Lynchin Boyd County.

Fishing Trips Offered OnRed Lake Reservation

RED LAKE, Minn. (AP) — Start-ing this spring, the casino on theRed Lake Indian Reservation willoffer guided fishing trips on some ofreservation’s smaller lakes.

The Grand Forks Herald reports(http://bit.ly/H6Ep0x ) Sunday thatthe guide service won’t include thetribal waters of Red Lake, but willinclude trips on more than 25 smalllakes within reservation bound-aries.

Darwin Sumner is outfitters man-ager at Seven Clans Casino, which isoffering the trips.

Sumner says nontribal anglershave been able to fish the reserva-tion’s small lakes in the past, aslong as they were with a Red Lakeband member. But this is the first

time package trips are being of-fered.

The trips will offer opportunitiesfor anglers to catch everything fromtrout to bluegills to walleye.

N.D. Man Charged With Ille-gally Capturing Bald Eagle

GRAND FORKS, N.D. (AP) — AMinnesota man is accused in fed-eral court of illegally capturing abald eagle in North Dakota.

Authorities say Aaron Reiling, ofHalstad, Minn., was trapping with-out a license and trespassing on pri-vate land near Hillsboro inDecember. A game warden discov-ered a bald eagle with one legcaught in Reiling’s spring trap. Adeer carcass had been illegallyplaced within one foot of the trap.

The eagle did not recover fromits injuries and was euthanized onJan. 14.

A plea agreement in the casecalls for a sentence of probationand a $1,000 fine. Reiling is sched-uled to appear in court on April 18.

DNR Tightens Size RulesFor Walleyes On Mille Lacs

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — The De-partment of Natural Resources hastightened size limits for walleyes onMille Lacs Lake for the coming sea-son.

Anglers can keep walleye lessthan 17 inches long, compared with18 inches under last year’s rules. Asbefore, one walleye 28 inches orlonger may be included in the four-fish limit. Any walleye between 17and 28 inches must be released.

Mille Lacs is being managed fora walleye harvest of 500,000pounds. The protected slot is meantto hold the take by sport anglers to357,500 pounds. The tribal quota is142,500 pounds.

The DNR says the new slot issimilar to several other big walleyelakes

Minnesota’s walleye season isset to open May 12, though a moveafoot in the Legislature would openit a week early.