[Evan]

We found our first morels today in the early patch. They are pretty small, but the earliest we've ever found. We're hitting the woods again in a few days when more will be up and we have more time. They're Here!!!!

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[mushroom mary]

Way to go, Evan. Now that the warm weather has arrived you should be in the thick of them soon.

[Dave W]

Checked our early spot today, but none yet. Shouldn't be very long though. I think by this weekend there'll be pretty good numbers of morels to collect around here.

[Schmidty]

I checked my black morel patch on Friday. Nothing yet, but it sounds like I shouldn't have to wait too long. I have two new spots to check out this year. One is a north facing slope with a bunch of big slippery elms along the edge of a field at the bottom. The other is along a fairly large stream with lots of tulip poplars, or at least I think they are tulip poplars. They are very tall trees and the canopy is filled in by rhododendron and hemlock, so I can't see the leaves.

Wow, when's the last time people in PA had morels for Easter?!?!?!

[Merkel Man]

I found a couple of little ones yesterday... I left em to grow a bit.

[Evan]

Very nice, Merkel man. We don't have the option of leaving them to get bigger. There is a lot of competition where we hunt. Luckily, there enough morels to go around. We stopped by the woods again today and found three more. I'm going to try to stay away from the woods for a few days, maybe then they will be larger and easier to find. Some rain would be great right now.

[Merkel Man]

Mostly we don't either... this is the super secret patch... ; ) about 200 ft above sea level... I can afford to let them go here, but the patch never produces more than about 6-12 morels. But its been doing so for at least 6 years. I'm afraid its close to being finished. In other spots that produce in these parts, there is certainly competition. But the esculenta are just a warm up for hunting on the east side of the cascades. That's when the real fun begins.

[V in VanBC]

Natural Black Morels are up in the southwest BC mainland as well. We collected about 18 today, mostly small, young specimens that should have been left to grow larger; but we couldn't resist. A few mature morels were found on steep, south-facing slopes exposed to the sun. A couple of photos are attached. One shows two tiny morels associated with cottonwoods in a flat location that produces 4 - 8 specimens every year. These were left to grow another week or two. The single morel photo shows the largest one that we collected today; the knife handle is almost 4" - 10 cm long. It was located in a small depression on a steep, rocky slope, like most of the morels we found.

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[georgem]

Looking good!

[Ducks n' Morels]

Very nice guys! I'm heading out later today, hopeful that I'll find the first ones of the season. The dandelions are busting loose in the yards! Won't be long 'til we're hauling in bagfuls! Good luck everyone!

[Dave W]

Found my earliest ever morel today; beats the old record by one day. Would have left it where it was, but I wanted to get a pic, and the camera was home.

[Evan]

Looks like things are under way everywhere. Good luck this year to everyone.

Dave, congrats on the broken record.

[IPanic2Mark]

Beautiful photos folks! Soon here though I won't be out until the weekend. Hopefully I can find a few to add to the thread! Very nice finds!

[Ducks n' Morels]

There here! I didn't get a chance to go out yesterday, decided to till up the garden and storms were threatening anyway. Went out earlier today instead with a friend and found 15 nice blacks in about an hour! More than I was expecting and had some size to them. You have to know just where to look, but they are here none-the-less. Good luck!

[IPanic2Mark]

Good job David! Wonder how far north they will be by the weekend....