Chanterelle Season is here

July officially begins the start of what looks to be a promising chanterelle season. I went out to check some patches last week and picked about a pound and a half in ten minutes. Hopefully all the rain we have had will help the smaller ones I left behind get bigger (though I haven't had as much luck with chants growing as I have with morels).

Here is another picture of some smooth chanterelles picked last week.
I have yet to find any common yellow chanterelles or cinnabars but I bet they are up now due to the weekend deluge.

My computer has been acting up so I have not been able to post for a while. I will try to post more often now that my computer is back up and running (for now).

An elusive one for me up until this year was the black chanterelle or "black trumpet" mushroom (Craterellus cornucopiodes). I found these for the first time early in June. The bigger ones had dried out already and the fresh ones were very small due to the lack of rain back then. I will have to go back and check them again, and now I know where to look. The ones I found were in a draw in between fields near the tops of a slopes. There was little ground cover and leaves but lots of moss. Trees were mainly oak and other mixed hardwoods (hickory, ash, etc).

Here is the first one I spotted. They are very easy to miss and usually the ones in full moss stand out best.



Here is a close up of a small tiny cluster that might have had a chance if it had rained in the five days prior. You can see some larger dried up clusters in the upper right (out of focus).

I hope to find some common yellow chanterelles after all this rain so hopefully I will get some good pics of those for the blog.