Fishing will always be my favourite part of being an outdoorsmen but I'm kind of partial to mycology as well. It's been a warm summer with lots of rain, and thus a banner year for mushrooms, especially hawkwings, Sarcodon imbricatus. It gets mixed reviews in most mushroom books but the ones around here are excellent eating, very meaty. They're freakin' all over the place this year



This mushroom is closely related but pretty much inedible -- Bankera fuligineo-alba



A lot you guys have probably seen this one, the famous Amanita Muscaria, or fly agaric mushroom. Every time I see one I expect to catch little gnomes dancing around it.


Vikings used to eat it before going into battle because it has psychotrophic effects when you eat it, which apparently make you a better fighter. Hence it's other name: the bezerker mushroom. A group of friends and I ate a whole whack of them once. Unpleasant hallucinations, anxiety, very nauseus followed by heaving, vomiting and dry heaves. One friend actually crapped his pants while puking. Not a good time with this mushroom.

This one is a close relative of A. muscaria, and a potentially deadly one: A. pantherina. First time I've seen it in the NWT. It's also a close relative of the most deadly mushrooms in the world: A. virosa (destroying angel) and A. phalloides (death cap). Slow, lingering, painful death. Avoid.



I'll be going on a long hike and fishing trip in a couple weeks time where I hope to make some exciting finds, especially hedgehog mushrooms. Very delicious.

Eww...

Mike,

Nice pics. I am a fun guy too, er I mean fungi guy :)

I really only eat 3. Morchella esculenta, Calvatia gigantea, and Grifola fondosa.

We had a bumper crop this past spring of morels. Here's a few pics.



A large speciment. Note beer can is 16 oz.



A portion of that afternoon's harvest. We collected 15# that weekend.



All cleaned up and ready to be cut and thrown in the pan. We had a big party that day and people were doing shots of Makers Mark out of morels.

Cool stuff! Probably 2 months of open water left in in the Colorado high country but down here we only freeze up for a month or two.

Those Berserkers are everywhere in the Rockies 'round here. practically tripping over the darn things.

Mycology is on my list of things to learn more about. Hopefully I plan to get around to it before too long, I need to pick up some good reference books first.

This year has been wild edible plants (plan to continue learning about that next year too). I've been finding all kinds of cool stuff outside of the regular berry picking, though this past summer was mostly a ton of nettle tea and grape tendril snacks.

" A group of friends and I ate a whole whack of them once. Unpleasant hallucinations, anxiety, very nauseus followed by heaving, vomiting and dry heaves. One friend actually crapped his pants while puking. Not a good time with this mushroom."

What the?

LOL

Awesome morels Bob! There's a burn zone an hour down the road I've been meaning to try for those. I can only hope I have your kind of success. Not a big fan of puffballs.

Tony, Mushrooms of the Pacific Northwest by Steven Trudell is a good book.

The fly agaric barf fest, ya, the folly of youth.

Y'know, I'm not much of a mushroom eater, but I have to say that those are some nice pics of mushrooms. Especially the A. Muscaria eye-level shot, looks great.

Cool stuff, I go after a bunch of different mushrooms myself, and it's a great topic.

Yeah, I even grow them in my living room, and I was able to gross out The Dutchman by offering him a taste!

I mainly go for puffballs (some varieties - the northern ones that grow mainly on wood taste like crap, but the giant southern field puffballs are delicious), morels, honey mushrooms, inky caps, shaggy manes, chicken of the woods/sulphur shelf, and I've been known to also find and eat brain mushroom/false morel, slippery jacks and other boletus, meadow mushrooms, coral mushrooms, oyster mushrooms, and chantarelles (which I have never eaten but I looked for them this weekend for four freaking hours).

I have a ton of cool pictures of mushrooms, if I can find them I'll post. We have bright yellow Amanitas in my woods, the red ones are cooler though. I took a bunch of pics of a Destroying Angel I found but they didn't turn out very well; I'm trying to get a good close-up shot of one. For some reason I'm fascinated by that mushroom; a family got killed by Destroying Angels a year ago here in Minnesota, and they are pretty common. Apparently they look exactly like an edible mushroom from Laos, and every so often the local Hmong community makes a stir-fry of "The Angel of Death Mushroom".

My favorite mushroom is the "Honey Mushroom" (not sure of the Latin name), there's a pic below. In my woods they appear suddenly in huge quantities; you could easily fill your pickup with them.

Awesome man!
Something I definately want to get into, when I have more free time to learn..
Amanita Muscaria(sp.?) is supposed to have a lot of spiritual applications, and is legal to possess and eat in every state but TN, Lousiana's also working to ban their consumption..
Though from what I hear the side effects can be pretty bad, like you said..
Though that's a conversation for a different time and place lol

Any good mushroom guides that you'd recommend to a newbie?

And tips on how to find the edible ones.. obviously damp, forested areas with dead leaves and stuff, or wet fertile fields after rains, but I only see a couple kinds usually..

And I know what you're saying with the gnomes dancing thing man, I was scoping out a wild trout stream a couple hours north early this year, further into the Appalachians, and I wandered into what seemed like a magical mushroom forest.. crazy, trippy stuff, complimented with mist coming off the stream and a mystical looking Hemlock canopy above head.. one of my favorite experiences this year.
I wasn't aware of "amita muscaria" at the time, but I remember a lot of them looked like Mario mushrooms, so I'm pretty positive that's what they were. Along with a dozen other crazy looking ones..

Sorry, rambling a bit. it was just cool stuff, gonna go back next year for some pics, maybe a few wild trout. Hopefully it's an every spring thing.

Here's a few shots from today. The hawkwings were scarse last year but the last few weeks they've absolutely taken over. Every forested patch seems to have a few of them, and quite often they're literally covering the ground.



The comblike-gills and scaly button are a big giveaway for this species.



Suillus tomentosus, one of several mushroom species refered to as slippery jacks. They too are widespread this year, particularly under pine trees. They're edible but apparently cause stomache upset in some locations. I've never had any problems. I didn't eat these guys because they were too wormy -- a common problem among Suillus/Boletus type mushrooms with sponge gills.



Hawkwing tops ready for the frying pan.


Some books say they make for mediocre eating or that they're even slightly poisonous, but I've never had any problems with them. In fact, I think they're delicious when sauteed. Maybe not quite as good as its relative the hedgehog (Hydnum albidum), but generally the mushroom I eat the most. I suspect, like a lot of species, their taste varies from one locale to the next.

Corey mentions eating false morels, which most mushroom books I've read rate as potentially deadly poisonous but on one six-week canoe trip nine years ago me and my partner must've eaten several pounds worth without ill effect (Gyromitra esculenta). We were completely ignorant of the danger, thinking they were true morals and having no guidebook to tell us otherwise. They were fantastically delicious and we only learned of our dangerous dinner when we got back to civilization. Apparently, we were saved because we never ate them raw nor breathed in the fumes when cooking them (which apparently has killed people -- destroys liver). They're harmless only when thoroughly cooked.

They're lots of weirdness and mystery when it comes to mushrooms and I haven't even begun to figure it all out, and I doubt I ever will. There are many mushrooms I see which I can only scratch my head and wonder what the heck it is. So many look the same.
I don't think there are a lot of seriously poisonous mushrooms where I am, although I'm sure there are probably quite a few that will make you sick and crap your pants. I haven't seen any of the truly nasty Amanitas here, although there is Deadly Galerina around (small brown mushroom that grows on logs.

J -- as far as mushroom guides go, I mentioned earlier Mushrooms of the Pacific Northwest by Steven Trudell because it has many mushrooms in it that grow around where I am. I got a bunch of others but all in all, I find they're of limited help unless you intend to do spore samples and things like that.
The hawkwing, pine mushroom, bolete -- they're good, easy mushrooms to start with because they're distinctive and unlikely to get confused with something really dangerous.

I find it amazing legislators would go through the trouble of trying to ban consumption of A. muscaria. I'd be the last person to advocate eating it but it's not like there's ever going to be a fly agaric epidemic in high schools. It's a mushroom, it grows in the ground. What happens if it starts sprouting in your yard? Would that make you a criminal?