Connie Lackey, 44, of Valparaiso, Ind., will always remember the 30th Boyne City National Mushroom Hunting Championships.
The annual championship is a major feature of Boyne City`s two-day Morel Festival, which draws people from all over Michigan and from out of state to partake in the carnival atmosphere and sample sauteed morels and bratwurst under a big tent near the city`s waterfront.
But the main draw is the hunt. Driven to a secret location in surrounding state forests, contestants race through the woods for 90 minutes, gathering morels.
Amazingly, Lackey won the non-resident division-with only two black morels. She had qualified for the Sunday finals by gathering seven black morels in the hunt on Saturday. Another Indiana woman, Karen Waldrop, had qualified for the final round with a total of 19 on Saturday; but on Sunday she was skunked.
Significant of this year`s unusually poor early morel crop is that Lackey, who took home a $75 purse, found the same number of morels-only 2-as Stanley Boris, veteran hunter and grand champion for the past four years, who has frequently gathered several hundred of the spring mushrooms in the 90-minute contest.
But the grand championship was retained this year in the Boris family by son Aaron, a 17-year-old junior at Charlevoix High School, who collected a check for $125, having scooped up 26 morels, still a paltry showing.
The Boris family method of morel hunting is unique. They run and scoop. They have a keen sense of where the morels are most likely to be found, so they waste no time between productive spots in the forest.
More truly characteristic of the average morel seeker, Lackey walked slowly and steadily through the woods, peering intently among the bobbing white trillium blossoms.
She found her two morels in the last 15 minutes of the hour and half, just after the first warning siren. They weren`t hidden, either, just standing more or less in the middle of her path waiting to be picked.
Weather conditions in northern Lower Michigan have not been conducive for morel growth this year. A long, warm, dry period which was marked by disastrous grass and forest fires just south of here, was broken in the middle of last week by much desired rain which unfortunately turned to snow, large patches of which lingered, whitening northern slopes along roadsides when the morel championships began Saturday.
The ground had become moist enough for mushroom growth, but was not yet warm enough, with night temperatures in the low 30s. But that made no difference to the 136 avid hunters who registered for this year`s two-day meet.
The quest for these delicious mushrooms should not be undertaken without some prior education, if for no other reason than that the edible morel has a look-alike that is poisonous, occasionally fatally so.
There are two types of edible morels: the black morel, which appears earlier in spring, and the white, which comes up later. Arguments over which tastes the better can become pretty hot. Both are delicious sauteed in butter. But, to be sure the would-be-hunter knows how to tell the safe from the dangerous, the novice should first read the literature on morels, which can be found in most libraries or purchased at bookstores.
Then he or she should go hunting several times with an experienced hunter.
One precaution all hunters follow is to look at the stem of the mushroom. In the true morel the cap and the stem are one continuous whole piece. The cap does not hang out over the stem like an umbrella but is attached to the stem all around its rim. Both the cap and stem are hollow. Also the true morel`s cap is pitted with little hollows, as if holes had been pounded part way into them.
Morels are found in the deepest woods, in old orchards, in popple groves, burnt-over meadows, on roadsides, in golf course fairways. It has been estimated that a half million enthusiasts hunt the elusive fungi annually in Michigan, beginning at the Indiana border in late April and moving slowly north, some even joining native hunters in the Upper Peninsula.
Each hunter has his or her own preference for where to look.
”I like the south sides of the hills,” Lackey said, adding ”and around the base of old trees. In Indiana we start hunting when May apples start blossoming, when the smelt run and the dogwood flowers.
”This is my first time up here,” she continued. ”My husband went fishing so I decided to come alone. We`ve been hunting on and off for 15 years. We have a 19- and a 21-year-old. They hunt with us sometimes. If they can find one in the first half hour, they`ll stay with us, but they get bored pretty quickly,” she said, laughing.
Lackey had picked up a stick when she first started into the woods with which she poked among leaves and under branches. She had been prowling at a steady pace up a slow incline, on the south side of hills wooded mostly by maples and tall, thick gray beech trees. A warm sun seemed to be climbing directly overhead.
”I love the whole process of the woods,” she said. ”I never feel alone in the woods. I`m not discouraged. I`ll be back.”
About then the siren sounded from the distant judges` car, warning that the first hour was up and that only 30 minutes remained for the hunters to fill their baskets.
Asked if she could find her way back, Lackey replied, simply, ”Sure, I have a good sense of direction. I don`t get lost.”
A few minutes later she almost stumbled on her first morel. Then she searched the immediate area, as experienced hunters do because where there is one morel there are usually two or three more, sometimes many more.
But not so in this case.
”At least I`m not going back empty handed,” she said with a smile.
Lackey found her second morel just as the 10-minute siren blew. She paused to search again, but as in the first case, there were no others around. She couldn`t believe it when she discovered a few minutes later that only the young Boris boy had gathered more mushrooms than she and that she was certain to capture the non-resident first prize.
”You can count on me being back next year,” she said. ”This was fun, and the woods are so beautiful up here.”
