(leaves crunching) Oh found one.

When it comes to those secret morel mushroom spots, mums the word.

- You can steal my wife, you can steal my bank account, you can burn my house down, but you cannot give away my mushroom spot ever.

(moderate music) - Words of wisdom.

- [Stefanie] Meet Corey and Stephanie Adkins, morel mushroom hunters.

They know a thing or two about where to find what you're looking for in the woods this time of year.

- All joking aside, and we are jokers, we do come out here with safety in our heads and thoughts, because I've been lost once in the woods.

She's been lost a couple times in the woods.

We've had somebody really lost in the woods.

We started to come up with a plan where we have a compass, we drop a pin at everywhere we go on your phone so you can actually find your own way back.

We've learned to follow the sun.

We bought walkie-talkies so we can always stay in contact with each other.

If your battery goes dead, we have a jump box.

If we're stuck out there in a storm, we have a chainsaw.

So those are just things.

If you are going out into the woods, down two tracks, there's some places we go eight, 10 miles down these things, we've needed almost every single one of 'em at one point.

- Truly hunter safety, just being in the woods, I think a lot of people you think, "Oh, I grew up here my whole life, it won't happen to me."

And then it does and it's terrifying.

- [Stefanie] With safety in mind, the sun shining bright, we've entered into the trees, dodging sticks and low branches as the leaves rustled beneath our feet.

- [Stephanie] That's a good one.

- [Stefanie] And it wasn't long before something caught my eye.

Now, as many of you know, morels are pretty picky about where and when they grow.

- The woods we were in today were maple and popple mixed.

So you wanna look for that mixture.

We have maple and popples behind us, but it's a little swampy.

It's a little too swampy.

So you want mix of soil temperature, maples and popples and they'll grow.

We've had a horrible winter the last three years and this winter, as everybody knows, was fantastic for mushroom hunters because we had a lot of snow cover.

- Holy crap, there's at least 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.

- [Stefanie] Corey and Stephanie are no strangers to this beloved Michigan pastime.

They have spent years searching for the best spots.

- We walked in what we call a honey hole, and then we walked out of it.

And then if you go 20, 30, 40, 50 more feet, you might find another honey hole.

I have a Native American friend up in Petoskey, his name is Nate, who I went out with him one time and he's like, "If you find one, follow the river.

Stop, drop, look down and you'll find more."

And we followed the river a lot today.

- We followed the circle.

It's like a grid, it's like a search grid.

And I think there's so many people too who they kind of say, "Well, how do I know where to look?"

And sometimes you literally, like us, you just have to put in the work.

You gotta get out into the woods and just go walk around for an hour.

If you don't find anything, try something new.

Move on.

And that's, a lot of people just, they wanna walk into a spot that's handed to them and pick.

Just put in the work.

It's like a little adrenaline hit.

And then there's another one and there's another one.

And it's like all of a sudden you just get amped up and it's like you could be having the worst day and when you get out to the woods, it all just falls to the wayside when you start finding morels.

And it's just so fun.

- [Stefanie] How do you know what are not good ones?

- So these have a hollow stem.

- And the other ones don't?

- And there are false ones we say that have, the stem is fuzzy.

It's like solid.

I haven't seen any of those out here today, or I would've pointed them out.

- After a solid haul, it was time to eat.

Morels can be broiled, fried, or in our case, sauteed on a grill, on a tailgate to celebrate our tasty treasures.

Also dehydrate them and freeze them, or sell them and they aren't cheap.

Which of course makes these spots so secretive.