
Xplor reconnects kids to nature and helps them find adventure in their own backyard. Free to residents of Missouri.
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Xplor reconnects kids to nature and helps them find adventure in their own backyard. Free to residents of Missouri.
A monthly publication about conservation in Missouri. Started in 1938, the printed magazine is free to residents of Missouri.
Kansas City, Mo. – Late April is a peak season for morel mushrooms in western Missouri, to the delight of people who like to cook them and find them in the freshly greening outdoors. Where they appear, though, is a challenge for those new to seeking the sponge-like fungi. Or for those veterans who cannot find them. Morels appear and disappear suddenly and randomly. Mushroom hunting morale can suffer when the weather and woods seem perfect, but no morels are found.
The Missouri Department of Conservation (MDC) recommends morel hunts as a fun outing for families. But keeping it fun for children (and restless grownups) increases the chances of finding morels, while it also helps connect them with other wonders nature offers. Here’s some morale booster tactics for families, but ones that can also be adapted to the solo mushroom hunter.
One more thing, pay scant heed to your text messages that mention friends who have found 300 morels so far and haven’t even checked their honey hole yet. Or, the person who harvested a turkey gobbler and found that the bird fell in a big patch of morels, near the lake where they limit out on crappie before lunch. Sure, morels are fun to find and a good excuse to enjoy a tasty mushroom flavored with skillet-browned flour topped with salt and pepper.
However, experienced morel hunters know enjoying all that nature offers in the spring woods is the best part, and finding a few mushrooms or none is as normal as spring arriving after winter.
For more information on morels in Missouri, visit https://short.mdc.mo.gov/ZnL.