Hello Forum, I'm completely new to hunting and relatively new to mushrooms in general. (done them 4 times) You guys have convinced me that purchasing mushrooms is not a great form of acquisition. I've been tricked by shady people and wasted a lot on money on crap. I want to better educate myself on identifying and picking them. I also live near cow pastures so that helps. I went looking in them the other day and found nothing. This is why I'm writing here. At what time of day should I go hunting? After it rains? I saw none! Did I not look hard enough? Do some cow pastures not grow shrooms because of the soil? Should they be easy to spot or do you really need to look under bushes and stuff. P.S. I live in miami. When we went hunting, it was before sun down and it had been raining all week, but not that day. Please help! thanks
you are in florida that is shroom heaven. wait till some of these hurricanes bring some more rain. get out of the city. get into the country where there are some cow fields. and not all pastures grow the right kind of shrooms. good luck! you can find one if you keep looking. go the day after it rains.
My time in Florida there were plenty of shrooms ... but hunting didn't bring much luck. Most I came across was grown indoors where some convinced officers it was "legal". Though this was South Florida, I'd imagine more up north ..
to the OP alot of "gourmet" mushrooms are very small when you see the first one, you will soon see hundreds
some cow food has stuff in it that stops mushies from growin. Not all farmers use these. aA day or 2 after it rains is good. Do be careful in what you pick. you really should have someone who has done this before. It could rot your liver out of your body. They have poe-poe (cops) that look for mush hunters to. Just read artical about "nerc cows" The cows are all standing and looking in one direction. Direction mush hunters are in .Dam cows!
Ya Flo ih duh is cube heavin, keep lookin! And spore prints are keys to noobies make sure when your printing you keep track of which stems belong to which caps because if not and if even one shroom is wrong all the stems go by by. But you shouldn't have to worry about that too much as long as you keep batches in seperate bags. Goooooood luck! Edit: just realized I didn't answer any of your ? but you'll have to forgive me I'm a cyan man myself, although seeing as I'm in TX I'll set aside some time to smurf this weekend,I'll tell you how it goes.
Mushroom picking in general is very dangerous if you do not know what you're doing and don't know what too look for. Your best bet to avoid dying or making a trip to the hospital is to go to Erowid and go to plants and then shrooms. It has the most extensive archive about mushrooms around. There used to be another site but it has all these dead links. Happy hunting and be sure to use paper bags for storage. Also be sure to keep all of them seperated, would suck to find the right kind and then contaminate them with the wrong one.
i think i would recomend the shroomery over erowid for identification personally. if im going by pictures i would prefer one of there trusted identifiers identify the pictures i take over me trying to identify a shroom from a picture off erowid. neither is 100% fail safe or are substitutes for hands on identification by a expert but if given a choice id pick the shroomery.
i would not use pictures on erowid to ID mushrooms. that's really iffy. your best bet is to take a sporeprint, multiple photos, notes on habitat, size, ect. and then let some experts at the Shroomery.org mushroom hunting forums take a look. if you know what spore color and physical traits to look for you aren't likely to pick the wrong mushroom in the first place.
ok i didnt ready anyone elses input but i live in cocoa beach so i kno the type of area your looking in. i have had the most luck with looking in the woods not pastures. Once you spot a couple you will be able to tell what type of terrain your going to be searching but until you figure this out here is where i look. I usually find them in or near a tree line some times under low hanging branches and i always look near pine needles they seem to hold the moisture in and go the next hot day after it rains so bascially two days after it rains lol cuz its always hot down here! well good luck lemme kno how you do o and we have p. cubensis and you guys have some more potent kind down there dont kno what they are off the top of my head. But the cubies will be golden to white with a purple ring, o and if you pinch the stem it will turn blue sorry i could ramble all day i dont know how much you know
