'Too many mushrooms for two guys to pick': Nearly 200 pounds of morels found in southeast Iowa

KEOKUK — Their hunt began slowly.

After an hour of walking through timber in Lee County on Saturday, Jimmy Johnson and Rusty Gates had found only three of the morel mushrooms they were seeking.

Ninety minutes later, they hit the morel mother lode.

"It was just nonstop as we were walking," said Johnson, a rural Keokuk resident. "We'd just see four or five here and then take a few steps and see more. It was continuous."

Johnson, who began mushroom hunting with his father as a child, had grown accustomed to finding morels near dead elm trees, but these were growing in unexpected places.

"Now, it's everything else," Johnson said of his morel discoveries. "A lot of maple trees and oak trees. For some reason, white oak, and that's unusual."

More: What you should know before hunting morel mushrooms in Iowa

Morels have a symbiotic relationship with trees. The mushrooms benefit from the nutrients trees produce. The tree benefits from the added moisture the fungi draw to the root system.

With so many mushrooms and only four arms between the two men, Johnson had to call his son, Trenton, to drive out to pick up some of the bags to bring home while the two continued their hunt, placing the morels into mesh bags that allow the spores they release to fall back to the ground, allowing them to flourish again in the future.

After a total of about six hours, the two men had found more than 130 pounds of morels.

"We got lucky," Johnson said.

He and Gates, a resident of Alexandria, Missouri, go morel hunting together every season. They split their haul down the middle.

Johnson kept 20 pounds for himself. The rest were given to family and friends and sold for $25 per pound to southeast Iowa residents, including several from Burlington, eager to fry them up. Johnson said he has set aside the $400 he got from the morel sales to put toward something mushroom-hunting related, though he hasn't decided what that will be yet.

All of Johnson's morels had been spoken for by Monday, their presence made known by word of mouth and a post he and his wife, Nici, made to the Morel Reports of Southeast Iowa Facebook page, where morel enthusiasts in the region often post pictures of their finds.

More: Tips on when, where to find morel mushrooms — and how to eat them — from southeast Iowans

Then, Johnson and Gates went out again. This time they found about 44 pounds of morels, although about half them didn't make it to the freezer due to Monday's high temperatures.

Morels do best when daytime temperatures range between 60 and 70 degrees, with nighttime lows of 40 degrees or above, according to TheGreatMorel.com.

Saturday's find alone made this season the most successful for Johnson. His previous record was about 75 pounds for an entire season.

He has a theory about why morels have been so abundant this year.

"We had just the right amount of moisture, and the soil temperature was good," Johnson said. "I just think it was an exceptionally good year."

Johnson has noticed an ebb and flow of morels in southeast Iowa over his five decades of hunting for them.

"It seemed like it kind of died off there for a little while, like they weren't coming out as good as they were," he said. "And now it seems like over the years that they're coming out in different spots."

More: 5 tips for cooking morel mushrooms, with help from Hotel Vandivort's new executive chef

With those changes, Johnson and Gates have shifted their focus from the grounds of state-owned land in Missouri to southeast Iowa.

Johnson offered other morel enthusiasts the following advice: "Never give up. If you walk two hours (and don't find any), walk 2½. Just when you think you're not going to find any, walk a little further, and you're probably going to find them."

Johnson and Gates plan to return to the same spot next season. But this time with some backup.

"I'm going to need help getting them out," Johnson said.

"That's too many mushrooms for two guys to pick."

Michaele Niehaus covers business, development, environment and agriculture for The Hawk Eye. She can be reached at mniehaus@thehawkeye.com.

This article originally appeared on The Hawk Eye: 2 mushroom hunters find 200 pounds of morels in Iowa. How they did it.