We recently (and ashamedly) turned in our prognosticator’s badges, and are still puzzling over why this fall mushroom season has been – at least so far – such a disappointing one. The signs seemed auspicious and totally optimistic: a good, soaking rain in late August (2-1/2”, here), followed by warm dry weather, interspersed with occasional, additional rains. We could hardly contain ourselves.
We found a lovely bolete growing in a friend's
yard in downtown Port Orford.
But no one told the mushrooms, which have been scarce around here. Few chanterelles, a few matsutakes, and even fewer boletes, and the season is well enough along now that we are beginning to worry about it.
And we’re not alone. When we visited the Mount Hood area in mid-October, we found few chanterelles – golden or white - and essentially NO boletes. We found a few matsutakes, but our “can’t miss” spot was barren of them, and we found no cauliflowers or coral hydnums in any of our normal spots. A return visit in mid-November had the same result.
Old friends in southwest Washington State tell a similar story. Our longtime friend, Elwin (the man who has taught us more about the woods than any other person in our lives!), told us that in elk camp this year, he and a half-dozen experienced outdoorsmen found not a single Golden Chanterelle in all their travels.
There have been isolated bright spots. Curt, a good friend in Gold Beach, found a bonanza in Oyster mushrooms ten days ago, and said he’s been finding Chanterelles right along – not red hot picking, but good enough. And one of my intrepid elk hunter friends in Washington reported getting eight to ten pounds of Goldens out of one small area not far from the Toutle River… needless to say, he wasn’t more specific.
One late report from southwest Washington came from Elwin’s son Jeff, who was given not one, not two, but three very nice cauliflower mushrooms from a buddy who said that they (and several more!) were found on stumps of second growth Douglas fir, logged a couple of years ago. Cauliflowers are our absolute, all-time favorite mushroom, and friends who give them away are rare indeed! Nonetheless, the how and where found in this report is a worthwhile piece of information. Cauliflowers are never plentiful, and contrary to some of the literature, we have rarely found them in the same exact place twice, although we always look. They do frequently recur, however, in the same general areas, so it pays to revisit places in which you’ve previously found them. They always grow on wood, although very occasionally the wood may be buried and not visible.
We made our annual pilgrimage to Powers to visit dear friends Al and Ruby Lively over the Thanksgiving weekend. Their mushrooming experience was consistent with what we’ve been hearing from virtually everyone else: pretty poor season for Golden Chanterelles so far. Where are all the mushrooms?
We sallied forth yesterday afternoon and found five or six pounds of Golden Chanterelles on our property in a couple of hours. We’re grateful for them, but trust me when we tell you that in even an average year we would expect to see at least 5 times more Chanterelles in the same area.
So the good finds are the exception rather than the rule. There are still mushrooms out there, but in our normal haunts, they are far from plentiful. For points north of here, the season is winding down; still time for some winter chanterelles (locals here call them “yellow feet”) and hedge hogs, surely, and possibly a late cauliflower or two, but the goldens and others are surely about over. There is still time for the southern Oregon Coast this season (our season often starts and always ends later than more northerly areas), but it needs to happen soon if it’s going to happen at all.
We weren't the only foragers in the woods.
A racoon had been thru the area earlier in the day,
scraping away at a dead tree
to get to the insects that had taken up residence
in what remained of the once proud structure tree.
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