Any mushroom hunters on here?

Alun

Guill wrote: »

met a guy who said he used to have a book that just showed you the poisomous mushrooms, he said it was great, if it was not in the book it was good. ounds like a good book to me...

"Not poisonous" is not the same as "edible" though. There are thousands of different fungi, but by far the biggest number are classed as non-poisonous and either inedible or just plain uninteresting.

I have a book that concentrates on the more common edible varieties (along with their common inedible/poisonous lookalikes that are easily mistaken by beginners) and also has a section on the poisonous ones. It's in the River Cottage series, http://www.amazon.co.uk/Mushrooms-River-Cottage-Handbook-No-1/dp/0747589321.

I also have Roger Phillip's excellent reference work http://www.amazon.co.uk/Mushrooms-Roger-Phillips/dp/0330442376/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1285701016&sr=1-1, but that gets used less than I had thought.

kaizer_soze

They're great suggestions. I haven't seen the Irish fungi book before. That would be handy. I'm fairly sure most fungi in Ireland are also in the UK although there are a few from the UK that don't exist in Ireland so it would be more relevant than most. I have the River Cottage Book and have just bought the Roger Phillips book today.

Ideally, I'd love to hook up with someone who knows more about mushrooms and identifying them for a mushroom hunt. You can't beat first hand learning from someone who knows. Much safer too!

Roen

Check the bushcraft thread over in the Outdoor Pursuits forum. Those lads meet regularly enough.

Alun

For a brief introduction I'd suggest going on one of the Avondale mushroom hunts organised by Bill O'Dea that are coming up soon, although they may be full by now.. See www.mushroomstuff.com for details. I went on one a couple of years ago, and also went on a trip they organised to the Asturias region of Northern Spain, all great fun.

kaizer_soze

I'll maybe checkout the Outdoor Pursuits guys. They do plenty of living off the land stuff. What did you think of the Wild Bill's Mushroom Hunt Alun?
I'd been checking out Bill O'Dea's mushroom hunts but the site for booking is a little mixed up. The link isn't working. €85 for a day including booking is a little steep I think. I know you get lunch and can cook your mushrooms etc and it would be a good day out, but I'm more interested in identifying and learning about the mushrooms. It would be handy if they did half-day courses purely on the hunting and identifying rather than lunch/dinner.
You could do two half-days hunting and identifying for the same price as one day with dinner I reckon. Did you find it was good value and you learned a lot in the one half days hunting?

Alun

See http://www.youtube.com/watch?hl=en-GB&RecordID=1&Mode=0&w=1280&v=AwWA51b7jSw&gl=IE&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mushroomstuff.com%2Fasp%2Findex.asp%3FObjectID%3D938 for a program on RTE a few years back that was filmed when I was there. You can spot me lurking in the crowd at the back at 6:00 BTW That should give you an idea of how the day pans out. There's not a lot of hands-on training if that's what you mean, but I found it an enjoyable day out, and it was only €65 back then IIRC. All I did was call Avondale House itself to book, but they may have changed the booking process by now.

Personally what I took away from the experience was that it's a far more complex field than I was initially aware of, and that rather than try and identify everything I found (a futile exercise for a complete beginner), a more productive and enjoyable way of going about it was to concentrate on a few common and easily identifiable edible species to start with (along with all their "false friends") and take it from there at a later stage when you feel a bit more confident.

kaizer_soze

Thanks Alun. It looks a great day out. I wasn't sure who was you in the film though.

I've just discovered that it's €80+€5 booking fee (although the booking system is down) if you book through mushroomstuff but it's only €65 if you book direct through Avondale House. I've just signed up for the event on the 9th Oct and really looking forward to it. Hopefully it'll be a nice dry day with plenty of tasty specimens found. It'll be great to have someone with expert knowledge to point out the edible shrooms and their poisonous look-alikes.

MB Lacey

kaizer_soze wrote: »

I haven't seen the Irish fungi book before. That would be handy.

Hey Kaizer, I have the COFORD mushroom book sitting on my shelf at home - you can have it for €20 if you want pm me if you're interested and I'll post it out to you.

I did the mushroom picking day at Avondale but have since gone off picking mushrooms from the wild due to all the id complications and fear of poisoning!

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1

For what it's worth, just to point out that the link posted in the first reply to this query contained information/recommendations on the Philips Mushroom Book, COFORD Irish Forest Fungi Book, a prominent link to Mushroomstuff.com and the day courses inherent to that site.:)

http://www.fungus.ie/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2%3Anew-irish-fungi-book&catid=3%3Anewsflash&Itemid=1

http://www.fungus.ie/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=59&Itemid=76

http://www.fungus.ie/index.php?option=com_weblinks&view=category&id=19%3Amushroom-sites&Itemid=59

The Fungus.ie site also explained the Code of Conduct, Identification problems and Health risks, & advice to avail of local experts. What more needs to be said or has not yet been said on the subject?:)

I do think a new thread on specific Mushroom/Fungi issues would be a valuable addition here: identification questions (though dicey on a messsageboard and using photos), reports of findings, discussion about abundance/dearths of particular species or in particular areas etc.