In today's video, I'm going to show you how to find one of the most delicious, highly sought after and elusive mushrooms that you can forage out in the woods.

I've been searching for these things since I was a little kid, hunting them with my dad.

I was a picky eater back then, but morel mushrooms are one of the few things that I would eat and really enjoy.

They are that good.

If you've ever looked for them before, you know just how hard they are to find.

They start to emerge in early to mid spring.

It's a little early in the year here in western Pennsylvania where I'm at, so I haven't found any yet this year.

But I'm going to take you on some hunts that I went on last year in the prime of the season, and I'll show you some tips and tricks along the way that will help you find more.

In this video, we're also going to be testing out a couple things, like does a thermal imaging device make it any easier to find morels, or does it even work at all?

It's something that I've heard people say before that works, so I figured I'd test it out myself.

Same with mushroom hunting glasses.

We're going to see if these work as well.

So join me as I hunt for this delicious forest delicacy.

These tips I'm going to show you are kind of specific to my area in Pennsylvania and the surrounding areas.

So your area might be a little different.

So I'm looking for a few different things.

Damp loamy soil, kind of loose soil.

You don't want the soil to be too hard or compact.

You want to find an area with really lush green growth where plants like trillium, may apples, bloodroot, wood metal, stinging nettle, trout lilies, where things like that grow.

The temperatures have to be right.

You want the ground temperature to be somewhere around 50 to 60 degrees.

I do best mid to late April and early May, a few days after a rain.

And places where other mushrooms grow and moss.

That's a good indicator of damp soil, but you don't want the soil to be too wet and secluded.

Places like if you're in a public area, you want to go deep into the woods where nobody else goes, or at least where very few people go.

I like to hike as far as I can in the deepest, darkest parts of the woods, and you want a good walking stick so you can kind of push the brush aside.

Places I like to look, or creek banks or riverbanks where all the spores have washed down the hillsides.

And they kind of collect in those areas.

Plus the ground usually stays damp in those areas.

Morales have a symbiotic relationship with the roots of certain species of trees.

They obtain carbohydrates and nutrients from them, while the tree benefits from the added moisture and nutrients that the Morales mycelium pulls up from the ground, that the tree's roots have a hard time reaching, so they exchange resources.

Certain trees that I'm looking for are tulip poplar, hickory, black cherry, sycamore, white ash, and my number one favorite elm, but more specifically, elms that are in the process of dying.

If they're missing some of their bark, that's perfect.

If they're missing, too much of their bark might be too far gone, might not be any morels under it.

So it's going to be in kind of the perfect stage of dying.

So there's a black cherry there.

I've never found too many around cherries, but I do hear that they do grow under them.

So I'm pretty much hunting trees.

The other nice thing about them is they come up usually in the same spots year after year.

Not forever though.

There's one spot I know where I've been finding them for 10 to 15 years.

They used to produce a lot more back then, but I do still find a few till this day.

But sometimes they'll grow under a certain tree until it's dead, and then once it's dead, they won't grow there anymore.

Personally, I prefer foraging for chanterelles and chicken of the woods because they're bright orange and you can see them from a mile away.

Morels?

Not so much.

You actually got to put the time and effort in and actually hunt the things you just want to scan the area for trees.

That looks like it might be a dying elm.

And to check that out.

It can be hard to identify by just the bark because they look very similar to other trees.

Also, there seems to be a lot of grapevines in the same areas where I find a lot of morels.

Not sure if there's any science behind that, but that's been my observation over the years.

One way to identify elms is sometimes their roots will be exposed kind of like this.

They kind of fan out right over there.

I spotted it from a distance.

You can see the bark is falling off.

Still has some of the bark on the tree.

So there's another dying tree over there.

I'm not sure what that one is yet, but we're going to go check it out.

And looking like we found some morels.

Check that out.

There's one there too.

So, yeah, I'm pretty happy about this.

I just want to be very careful not to step on any.

Before I pick these, I like to tap off the spores.

It's an ugly one, but I'll take it.

When you find one, you just want to start.

Take your time and scan the area.

It can be hard to find in this thicker stuff, and a lot of times you'll miss some.

And here's a good example.

I must have stepped over this one about ten times, and I didn't even see it.

When I first started using these glasses, they didn't work like I thought they were going through.

They don't make the mushrooms glow or anything like that, but they do help does seem to ease up the contrast that's on the forest floor.

It makes it a little easier to see certain things.

I need all the help I can get when I'm looking for these things, so I don't mind having them.

Most of the time they grow in patches, so usually if there's one, there will be more.

Wow.

And I didn't even know there was one under this leaf.

I like to keep them in a mesh bag, so when I carry it around the woods, the spores will fall off and scatter on the ground.

There's one over here.

They're not going to be under elms like that that have been dead for a long time.

Only the ones that still have some of the bark on them.

Sometimes I'll hike several miles and I won't find a single mushroom.

That's just how it goes.

So don't expect to go out into the woods and just find all kinds of them right away, because most of the time that doesn't happen.

At least not for me.

Ramps, also known as wild leeks.

They taste just like a cross between onion and garlic.

Very, very strong flavor.

And a lot of times where I find these, I'll find Morales in the same area.

You know, I always think these are Morales when I first see them.

Some pheasant back.

These are good to eat too.

Perfect growing stage of this too.

Here's an elm.

Here you can see how the roots are kind of fanned out above the ground.

But this one is alive, so probably not going to find any morels under it.

Okay, so there's another dying elm over there.

So nothing under that one, but I'm going to keep walking more pheasant backs.

The only problem with morel hunting is it's very addicting.

Once I find a good patch of them, I don't want to leave the woods until I find more, until I can't walk anymore or whatever.

One comes first.

Trying to get down to this creek bottom, it's a little steep.

I guess I'm going to have to slide down there.

Oh.

Made it.

A lot of times you'll find them.

These Sandy Creek banks.

All right.

So I just saw one right off the trail.

Decent sized one.

See if you can see that.

So there's the mushroom and there's a sycamore right over there.

So I got to be very careful where I step as I'm walking in here.

See if I could find any more growing.

Found another one about ten feet away.

Just look how good these things blend in.

Just the glasses.

Sycamore.

Morels Morels.

Right there.

I can check 100 sycamores and not find a single morel.

But every now and then, a sycamore will come through for me.

They like damp soil, and so do morels.

Just not too wet, not too dry, not too wet.

Somewhere right in between, but more on the damp side.

They're very particular.

A little overkill, you might say, and you'd probably be right.

I just needed an excuse to try out my new knife.

So I'm finding morels scattered all through this area.

So I'm going to look through here really good.

Make sure I don't miss any.

You can't pull them out of the ground.

It doesn't matter.

I just like to cut them.

That way.

Less dirt will get in my bag.

There's got to be more in here somewhere.

I might need a chainsaw for this one.

Couple nice ones.

I found another one.

Cool.

Let's keep looking for more.

I forgot my bag.

I wanted to try the rattler out today.

I've always heard that you can spot morels with a thermal imaging device.

I have the thermal set to white hot, which means that the warmest objects are going to be more white in color, while cooler things are going to be dark gray and black.

So they definitely show up in the thermal, but they show up as cold instead of warm.

There's a morel right in the center of the screen.

There's a couple.

Can be kind of hard to tell the mushrooms apart, though, since there's a lot of things showing up as cold, like a lot of the leaves.

Another one here.

There's a bunch of them hiding in here, so it's not something I'd rely on.

But the thermal does seem to work.

The only time I think I'd ever use it would be if I've already found some.

And I just don't want to miss any, like, more hidden ones.

I might have a hard time seeing.

So what you're looking for with this is instead of looking for heat signatures like you would when you're spotting animals, you look for cold spots and sometimes the cold spots will be the morels.

I've walked around this tree at least 6 or 7 times so far and I keep finding new ones.

My problem is, when I find a big patch like this, I get all excited and stupid and I just start running laps around the tree.

I got to try and force myself to slow down, especially so I don't step on any.

I did that once and haven't forgiven myself since.

Possibly the best tasting thing in the woods.

I also love to look under apple trees.

A lot of times that's where I'll find some.

Just some small ones.

I'm getting behind my house.

I got a bunch of them hiding under the leaves here to cook these.

I usually just slice them in half after I rinse them off.

And you do need to cook them thoroughly before you eat them, to cook the toxins out of them because they are poisonous, raw, and morels are going to be hollow.

From the stem to the cap, there's a poisonous lookalike called the false morel, which are not hollow.

So just be aware of that and always properly identify your mushrooms.

So I'm just going to add some butter to my cast iron skillet.

And I like to sauté them for about 6 or 7 minutes while flipping them until they're nice golden brown.

You can cook them for a few minutes longer if you want to be safe, but that's always been enough for me.

I don't like to cook them too long.

I'll sprinkle a little sea salt and pepper on them.

You can add these to all kinds of things, like steak, for example, or just eat them by themselves.