Turick

Well, I ended up just doing that... putting them in baggies full of water and freezing them like my dad used to do.

I went to the spot where I thought I found rotting ones last year in a state park here in MO... nothing. I went trapsing around a bit more in areas that seemed like good places to potentialy find one... still nothing. I finally decided to give up and never come back to this area of the park again, cursing the trees and the bugs. On my way back, defeated, I was taking a trail and decided to walk just a little of the trail, just in case. Saw a dead tree still standing and thought I'd check around it... sure enough, I found one! I'd say it's a little past being perfectly fresh, but good enough! Hard to see how big it is in that picture. Here it is next to my knife... I'm guessing it weighs ~20lbs. And here's the dead tree. Wish I knew what it was. How do you guys go about cleaning them? As a kid, my dad and I would break them apart and soak them in water to kill all the bugs. Then we'd break them apart more and hand clean them the best we could. Finally, we would store them by putting them in freezer bags full of water and freezing them in big chunks of ice. To thaw, we would run the bags under hot water to melt the ice as quickly as possible. They would keep for years this way, but it seems like everybody says soaking in water is bad. Any recommendations?

That chicken is so perfect, the picture looks fake!

Very nice I'm salivating!

Too bad. I was really hoping it was the start of a few maitake! Thank you all so much for the info. Your knowledge astounds me

Sounds like very solid advice... thanks! Hey old oak -- I'm in St. Louis, MO. I figured it would be a bit early, but I saw guys further up north finding them and I just wanted to be absolutely sure I didn't miss the season again this year, so I went out early. I might just go every weekend through October now. It's so nice just to get out in the woods, even if I don't find any mushrooms.

Thanks guys. John -- your IDs have been right on. I sampled the chantrelles and the oysters last night and they were good. The chantrelles were very salty and I think we liked they oysters the best. So could you go into more details about how you clean them in the field? Some were so dirty they weren't even worth cleaning. Also, I find it very difficult to tell which ones are bad and which ones are good. Some of them just want to crumble apart, some of them have the ridge structure on the underside just melt away when I try to wash the dirt off. There are some that have dark spots and and the stems were a bit funky on the inside, and I threw those out, but I'm just not sure if this is normal when cleaning them. I have some pictures from last year that are a little clearer that I posted of what I thought was a rotting hen. http://www.wildmushroomhunting.org/index.php/topic/772-my-rotten-trip/ So in that series from last year, the first picture was full of rotten fruit but not necessarily recognizable as a hen. It wasn't until I walked around the stump and found 2 more that were clearly old hens. Yesterday, I didn't see the 2 that were clearly old hens, I only saw the first one. If you look closely, at any given section of what was there, it looks just like a single layer of a hen... very leafy, however it wasn't altogether in one cluster very well and very rotten. So the first picture in my series of "hen" pictures from last year is the same as my rotten hen picture from yesterday. I'm guessing it's just that this one guy isn't really a hen.

Hi all... After years of wanting to get back into mushroom hunting, I finally decided to do it last fall. Unfortunately, it was too late for any hens, which are my favorite to find. I decided to go back out early this year to make sure I don't miss a thing. I've never hunted for anything besides hens and morels befre. I went out today and found some interesting mushrooms and was wondering if I could get some opinions or possible help identifying these. 1) First, I found a LOT of these... patches of them everywhere. I think these are chantrells. Some were new little tiny babies, some big, some big and decaying, and I even found large patches of completely black rotten ones. I grabbed the ones I thought were good. 2) I found quite a few of these as well. They look kind of similar to the chantrells, except they are much more red and smaller. 3) This was one small grouping I found... not much to say, but I grabbed them just in case they're good: 4) Pretty much the same here... these were growing on the same tree but I'm not sure what they are 5) These guys were really odd... they looked like stalks of asparagus or something. They were growing straight up, and to the touch, they very much felt like fungus. 6) Finally, on to the hens. I found a decaying stump last year than had a few rotting hens around it. When I went back today, it looked like the same rotten mushrooms were still there. How did these last an entire year? My mind was a little blown, but I did notice right next to some of the rotten meat that there is a very bright white structure under some of the rotten wood. Is this the underground structure that will eventually (hopefully) spawn a hen? Sorry for the poor image quality... And finally, I found about 3 of these tiny little structures starting to grow. I was hoping these could be the very beginnings of hens, but I have no idea. And that's it!

Very nice! What have the temps been up there? It's been in the 80's here in Missouri this week, but lots of rain yesterday, today, and tomorrow, and starting tomorrow the highs are going to be in the high 60's early 70's for the foreseeable forecast. I'm going out Friday and probably Sunday or Monday. Not sure if it's still too early, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed!

yes -- that is very cool!

If you don't have a taste for hens, try some old fashioned breading and deep frying. They'll melt in your mouth and you'll keep eating them right out of the fryer until you want to puke It might be that I'm a cheap bastard and the hens are one of the best value mushrooms -- you don't need to find very many to last you for a long time, but I've put them on just about everything you could possibly put mushrooms on and prepared them a million different ways and can't get enough.

I'm in Missouri and it's been very cool all summer... this has been the coolest summer I can remember in my life, however we've had a very hot spell the past couple of weeks. That all ends tonight as the 7 day forecast has lots of rain, highs in the 70s, and lows in the 50s and 60s. I think maybe next week I'll start my first hunts.

Really looking forward to snagging some maitake this year. It's been really odd weather here in Missouri this year, so it'll be interesting to see when they start popping. How soon do you guys plan on looking for them?

I had intended to let it grow out of curiosity, however the lawn people came right after I took the picture and cut it down! One thing that the picture doesn't accurately convey (probably because my grass was so long) was the size. The stem was actually pretty long, maybe 4-5 inches, and the head was probably the size of a tennis ball. To me, it looks quite a bit smaller in the picture. I just did a google search for green-spored parasol and I do believe you are correct sir... all of the pictures before it opens up look just like what I saw in my yard. Thank you!

It's very common for me to get mushrooms in my yard, however I've never seen one like this growing in my yard before. Anybody have any idea what it is?