How to start mushroom hunting?

Foraging mushrooms is a wonderful type of hobbies. But it is important to know and to follow the main steps of it. And in this blog we want to share with you about how to start mushroom hunting.

You don’t need much in the way of equipment to find and pick mushrooms, but there are a few key items and resources that will help you find what you’re looking for as well as keep you safe, from both accidentally poisoning yourself and getting lost in unfamiliar terrain.

The biggest fear people have when they start hunting mushrooms is meeting an unfortunate end by sampling the wrong species, and that anxiety is well founded. A popular aphorism among mushroom hunters is, “You can eat any mushroom ... once.” Another goes, “There are old mushroom hunters, and there are bold mushroom hunters, but there are no old, bold mushroom hunters.”

Though mushroom-related deaths are relatively rare—around three per year in the United States, according to the National Poison Data System—many more people each year (closer to 7,500) experience everything from mild nausea to liver failure due to either eating the wrong species or failing to prepare wild mushrooms correctly. Some mushrooms (such as the fabled “death cap”) are straight-up deadly. Others will make you sick but probably won’t kill you. And some that are generally considered safe to eat still need to be thoroughly cooked to destroy naturally occurring, nonlethal toxins. This is one reason why, generally speaking, you should never eat wild mushrooms raw—even ones said to be edible. Another is that cooking makes mushrooms more digestible to humans and unlocks their considerable nutritional value.

The one cardinal rule in mushroom hunting is: If in doubt, throw it out. Luckily for aspiring foragers, however, the choicest edible mushrooms are hard to mistake for anything else. Morels, with their distinctive brain-like appearance, can only possibly be confused with false morels, which don’t really look that much like the real thing upon close inspection. Likewise, there are false chanterelles, but the fake ones have gills rather than the characteristic ridges that you’ll find on the underside of true chanterelles. Matsutakes are among the most difficult to identify by sight alone, but their distinct smell—often described as “cinnamon and gym socks”—is a clear giveaway.

The best way to avoid poisoning is to get familiar with the characteristics of the specific mushrooms you’re looking for, learn when and where they’re available, and ignore everything else. And the best way to do that is to get a good mushroom-identification book. These books detail individual species’ habitats and growing seasons, their look (including spore prints) and smell, and their edibility or toxicity.

Once you know what you’re looking for, it’s time to actually go out into the wild and find it. To do that, you’ll need a few things. Thankfully, mushroom-hunting gear is generally pretty basic, inexpensive stuff.

• A basket or a mesh bag: Part of being a good mushroom hunter is ensuring that there will be mushrooms to hunt next season. Though there’s vigorous debate over their efficacy, many believe that using a wicker picnic-style basket or a mesh bag (a laundry or reusable produce bag works great here) ensures that spores can fall from the mushrooms you’ve picked and repopulate the forest floor.
• A pocket knife: You need a knife to clean up the stems of mushrooms you pick, cut them to check for worms, and in some cases cleanly extract them from the ground. (Again, there’s lots of debate over whether it’s better to cut mushrooms or to pluck them, but the evidence indicates that plucking most species doesn’t damage the underground mycelium, and picked mushrooms will drop spores whether they’re cut or pulled.) Any old knife will do for this purpose—in fact, I used a kitchen paring knife on my last outing—but a folding pocket knife or a retractable-blade utility knife is best, if only because you’re less likely to accidentally stab yourself with the exposed blade.
• A brush: It’s a good idea to carry a brush to clean the tops and gills, ridges, or pores of your mushrooms after you’ve picked them. The less dirt that goes into your basket or bag, the less you’ll have to clean off your mushrooms later. A good paint brush works well for broad strokes, and it’s not a bad idea to carry a soft-bristle toothbrush for detail work. (Again, don’t forget to wrap some flagging tape around the handle!)
• A topographic map: Specific mushroom species like to grow at specific elevations at different times of the year, as temperature and humidity conditions have to be just right for ideal growth. Carrying a topographic map means you can always tell whether you’re in the right zone—once you know how high you need to go, anyway. Google Maps has a topographic layer available, but getting the signal you need to use it can be a challenge when you’re out in the woods. Luckily, the U.S. Forest Service makes printable PDF files of topographic maps available for free online (using U.S. Geological Survey data), so if you know where you’re going to hunt, print them out before you leave the house.
• A permit (where necessary): If you’re hunting on government land—and especially U.S. Forest Service land—chances are you’ll need a permit. These permits are usually free for noncommercial use and will allow you to collect a sizable load of mushrooms each day.
• Water and snacks: When you’re trekking up and down mountainsides, you work up an appetite. And in the unlikely scenario that something unfortunate happens and you’re stranded out in the wilderness waiting for rescue, it’s a good idea to have a water bottle handy.

Depending on what kind of mushrooms you pick and how much you’re able to harvest, you may end up with way more than you can reasonably use before they go bad.

While they’re fresh, you can use edible mushrooms in pasta and soups, and many are delicious grilled or fried. Almost all edible mushrooms taste amazing sautéed with butter and either garlic or shallots. But it bears repeating: Cook mushrooms thoroughly before eating, and never eat them raw. Consult your guidebook for cooking tips specific to each species.

If you live in an area where choice mushrooms grow, chances are good that there’s an active mushroom club you can join. These clubs are full of people of all experience levels who are more than happy to help newbies get acquainted with the hobby and avoid bad outcomes. They often host foraging expeditions (led by veteran foragers), as well as talks by biologists, medical professionals, chefs, and authors of mushroom books. There are few better resources out there.

In addition to joining a club, it’s a good idea to make yourself cozy on one or two online forums dedicated to mushroom foraging.

Just be aware that while people in these clubs and forums might be full of advice and happy to help you avoid mistakes, that doesn’t mean they’re going to give away the locations of their favorite hunting grounds. It takes years to find “honeypots” where choice mushrooms return year after year, and they tend to be tightly guarded secrets. If someone refuses to tell you where they found their bounty, don’t be offended—often, they’ll happily provide you with a general area, an elevation, or tips on which indicator plants to look for.

At that point, it’s up to you to explore. After all, half the fun is the thrill of the chase. If you do the necessary research and equip yourself with the right tools, you can become a proficient mushroom forager in just one or two seasons, bringing home enough delicious edibles to feed a whole family plus some lucky neighbors.