Pamela McCoy wasn’t even hunting for morel mushrooms when she decided to take a walk on April 30 and found one nearly 9 inches tall.

Like most people would do, McCoy picked it and snapped a photo to prove her find. It ended up being 8 3/4 inches long and 11 inches around.

The same day, resident Danny Key was out hunting for morels in his “spot” on public land next to a certain elm tree. It was obvious someone had visited it before him, but missed a “monster” of a morel that was the size of Key’s hand.

Chad Reeves and his daughter, Emmah, have found 118 of them so far.

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“This season has been awesome,” Chad said.

Joe Steele has found 200 so far in Brown County. He even revealed his spots: Explore Brown County, Crooked Creek Road and Yellowwood State Forest.

“This season has been one of the best in the last decade,” Steele said, citing slow-rising temperatures and moisture on the ground.

“I’m finding nice ones still, late in the season. I recommend following low-lying creeks. Sycamores are putting them up, and (those are) easy to identify as a tree for beginners.”

Chelsea Smith’s family went out for a hunt and she guessed they collected between 10 to 12 pounds of morels.

Caitlin Spangler and her partner, Nicole Whitaker, have found more than 200 morels so far after only hunting a few times this year.

“This year has been great compared to last year. We’ve had the right amount of rain and the temps were right on point,” she said.

“Last year was dry and got too hot too fast. I hope we get a repeat next year.”

‘Really good year’

Any type of fungus thrives in wet conditions, said Patrick Haulter, interpretive naturalist at Brown County State Park.

“Even when you think about molds and things like that, they like the wetter conditions. I think we’ve already had our year’s worth of rain at this point,” he said.

But too much water can be bad, though. Haulter said heavy flooding in other states has made morels tough to hunt there. “In certain states they have even told them not to collect them because … with dead fish around them, they are afraid they won’t be very good,” he said.

Here, a wet winter and steadily increasing temperatures led to great conditions for morels.

People are welcome to hunt for them at the state park since it is public land.

“You can pick them in the nature preserve, but we really prefer you didn’t only because we want those to be around for people to be able to see them,” Haulter said.

He also suggests that hunters collect their morels into a mesh, potato-type bag instead of a plastic bag.

“While you’re hunting, that will spread the spores and make it to where we’ll have more mushrooms next year. If you do it in a plastic bag, they won’t spread the spores. That spot you just picked, we won’t have mushrooms there next year,” Haulter said.

Morel mushrooms can live underground around a live tree for 10 years before they ever pop out of the ground.

“What happens is that tree dies and the morel is looking to spread its spores. … Then they start popping up these mushrooms, and that way, they spread their spores out and go somewhere new. Their tree, their host, is dying,” Haulter said.

That’s why when hunting for mushrooms, it’s important to look around dead trees, especially elm and sycamore trees, he continued.

“Mostly looking for something dying will help out a lot. Dead wood, they will like dead wood. I’ve heard some people find them in pine groves from time to time. I’ve never found one that way, but supposedly people do,” Haulter said.

Brian Hunt, a local morel and wild mushroom inspector who’s registered with the state department of health, said this is the best morel season he’s seen in about 10 years.

He said that in addition to dead elms, living ash, tulip poplar and sycamore trees, hunters have had luck finding them around maples, wild cherry and oak trees as well this year.

“Prime morel season is right now,” he said last week. “South-facing slopes will have big, mature ones. With Brown County’s hilly terrain, it provides its own microclimates, and north-facing slopes and bottoms that don’t get as much sun will be producing for the next few weeks as long as the weather stays cool.”

He’s been posting about his finds on inaturalist.org and in the Facebook group “Indiana Mushrooms.” Part of his work includes collecting specimens so that they can be DNA-sequenced, he said.

Last year, Hunt collected 437 mushroom specimens, including some types that were the first to be documented in Indiana and a few that were new to science, he said.

“This year has just started for me, and I believe that the other mushrooms’ season will be just as great,” he said.

Local hunter Holli Bruce and her son Matthew have found several batches of both yellow and dark morel mushrooms this season. “We do have better luck with finding them near apple, tulip and ash trees in the Lake Lemon part of the county,” Bruce said.

She was letting her latest batch of 12 large, yellow morels soak up saltwater before tossing them in flour and frying them up in a mix of bacon grease and canola oil.

For years, the state park has hosted a Morel Mushroom Festival. Last year, it also began having “Mushrooms and Mash” as part of the festival that evening. Morel mushrooms are fried, drinks are sold, bands play and s’mores are made for children. This year’s festival took place this past weekend.

“My whole idea was to be able to sit, watch a band, watch the sunset, drink a beer and have some morel mushrooms at the state park,” Haulter said.

More than 300 people attended last year’s Mushrooms and Mash, he said.

Throughout the day, festival visitors can buy either half-pounds for $25 or whole pounds of morels for $50. This year, purchases were limited to one pound per person.

“If they want, they can get back in line and try to get another pound,” Haulter said. “It was such a bad year for morels last year, people were getting in line trying to buy 3 or 4 pounds then the people at the end of the line didn’t get any.”

The morels sold this year are were coming from Oregon.

Ask before you hunt

When it comes to hunting for morel mushrooms, rules do apply.

“Ask the property owner before you enter their property looking for mushrooms. Probably a lot of people would be willing to let you do it for a share of the spoils,” James Wetzel wrote on a Facebook about hunting morels in Brown County.

Wetzel suspects people have trespassed on his property to hunt morels, but he has not caught anyone.

“If someone came and asked us, we’d be happy to let them look. ‘Not sure why people are afraid to just knock and ask instead of going right into ‘thief’ mode,” he said.

Nick Johann has found trespassers on his property who have admitted to looking for morels. “I didn’t invite them over to steal from me,” he wrote.

Mary Gaither also has had people walk on to her property to hunt without permission. “Back in the day, if it was a local, we tended to shrug it off, but when you hear the excuse from non-residents of, ‘Oh, we thought we were on public lands,’ it kind of gets your hackles up. May have to break out the purple paint,” Gaither wrote.

In 2018, a law was passed in Indiana allowing property owners to put purple marks on trees to post notice that people were entering private property. The marks must be vertical lines that are at least 8 inches long, with the bottom of the line being between 3 to 5 feet off the ground.

Sheriff Scott Southerland said his department sees an increase in trespassing calls when morels start popping up.

“People see a spot, pull over and just go, not knowing whose property it is. I’ve heard them say, ‘Well, I’ve been hunting mushrooms here for 20 years.’ OK, you’ve been trespassing for 20 years, then,” Southerland said.

“People take that pretty personal. They’re pretty protective over their mushrooms.”

By the time deputies respond to the call most trespassers are gone, but they do sometimes catch up with them, the sheriff said.

“If it’s their first offense, we try to move along and let them know they are trespassing, explain the law and the rules to them, and try to prevent it from happening again,” he said.

Criminal trespassing is a Class A misdemeanor in Indiana. If convicted, a person could face up to a year in jail and pay up to $5,000 in fines.

“It’s against the law,” Southerland said.

He said if property owners believe someone is trespassing they should call the sheriff’s department dispatch at 812-988-6655.

“You’d be surprised at how many people from outside of the county who come here as visitors, who see this big, open, wooded area and they think it’s all public property,” Southerland said.

If someone is caught with morels they picked off private property and they did not have permission to hunt there, they could also potentially be charged with theft. “I don’t know if anyone has ever pursued that,” Southerland added.

People are allowed to hunt for morels on public lands, like the state park and the Yellowwood State Forest.

However, according to the Indiana Department of Natural Resources, picking mushrooms to sell is not allowed at the state parks.

The DNR states it is OK to leave marked trails to look for mushrooms on state park properties, but be cautious not to disturb wildlife or native plants.

“We probably get more complaints on people trespassing when hunting mushrooms than we do with deer hunters,” Southerland said.

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If you’re no good at finding morels in the woods, just look for the giant mushroom statue in the parking lot of the Brown County IGA of Memorial Day Weekend.

The 22nd annual Howard Hughes Memorial Morel Mushroom Sale will take place Friday, May 24 and Saturday, May 25 from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.

A pound of morel mushrooms will be $50 and a half-pound will be available for $25. Cash, check and credit cards will be accepted. The prices are subject to change.

Proceeds from the sale will go to local charities.

Pre-orders can be made by emailing [email protected].

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