5 Tips and secrets to mushroom hunting success

So since I've been talking about mushrooms and hunting so much, I may as well be helpful to the readers and give a few tips to help you when you do decide to take an adventure of your own. Some of these won't be as much of a secret to some people. But hey, knowledge is power.

1: Rain. You must wait for a few days of precipitation, you'll find much more because mushrooms are practically 90% water. Unlike plants, mushrooms don't need sunlight.

2: Disturbances. Not only the casual creek or river, but also includes logged roads and any man-made destruction. Fungi thrives in these areas because of the freshly available nutrients.

3: Trees: Many mushrooms are mycorhhizal meaning they grow from roots of trees. Study your tree types and it will help in the long run when looking for certain mushrooms.

4: Bike. Believe it or not, traveling short distance in hunting grounds allows covering larger amounts of area that you normally couldn't on foot. Sometimes you also miss smaller mushrooms though.

5: Elevation. Early in season if conditions are optimal, higher elevations will host climates suitable before normal picking times. This formula works the same way as late season when mushrooms can be found near sea level. Often people don't bother checking, but the early bird always gets the worm!

Mushroom indentification for everyone

So you're probably wondering how to figure out exactly which mushrooms are good and what is bad? The first step would be getting a book. Libraries have been known to have mushrooms books but are rarely in stock. The best place I would recommend is Amazon. A few good authors are Paul Stamets, David Aurora and Gary Lincoff. They all have various books for areas as some states wont have the same mushrooms. "All that rain promises and more" by David Aurora was my first book and it pretty much covered everything that I came across for the most part. A better, more in-depth book by the same author is "Mushrooms Demystified". Its almost too much information to take in all at once but a great guide that includes it all.