Winter Mushroom Hunting

photo by Hanna Marklin

The typical hunter-gatherer types think of picking mushrooms primarily as a spring and fall activity. However, if you learn enough of the edible varieties, habitats they grow in, and the longevity of their seasons, you can easily make this past-time last all year. Winter is one of my favorite times of year for mushroom hunting. While the gold rush for fall chanterelles is probably the most popular among mushroom hunters, they tend to disappear once the rains and freezing weather put an end to the harvest. Mushroom hunting during the winter months also reduces conflict with most hunting seasons, particularly in regards to big game. Best of all, it's a great excuse to get outside when the river is blown out and the weather isn't cooperating for winter steelhead, or you've already bagged your limit of ducks in the morning.

The progression of different species that fruit during this seasonal transition begins with Hydnum repandum, commonly known as hedgehog mushrooms, which are very similar in density, texture, and taste to chanterelles. Some species of hedgehog mushrooms begin fruiting in late summer and early fall, however there are others that will continue to fruit long after chanterelles have gone past their prime. Hedgehog Mushrooms get their name from a unique spiky pattern of spines beneath their caps where you typically see gills on most mushrooms. Their lack of imposters also makes them a fairly easy mushroom to identify and distinguish as an edible. These are a great choice for savory dishes, mushroom soups, or even pickling, and will maintain their density and texture fairly well after cooking.

As the season transitions into colder, freezing temperatures that are inhabitable for most fall mushroom species, another prolific and unique mushroom is the Lactarius or more commonly known as "Candy Cap" for it's strong maple syrup aroma. There are three North American species of Lactarius, but the Lactarius Rubidus is more common on the west side. This particular mushroom requires a little more advanced identification, as it resembles a large pool of lookalikes known by the mycological community as "LBMs" or "Little Brown Mushrooms." The Galerina is one toxic lookalike that grows in the same habitat. It's recommended to gather Candy Caps by hand rather than with a knife. The texture of their stem (known as a "stipe") is fairly fragile and breaks more like an old, dry twig, while it's imposters have a stipe that is more flexible, and tends to bend and break more like a green willow branch. Another analogy to explain this would be the difference between bone and cartilage.

Candy Caps are pretty unique in their range of culinary applications, and are typically dried first and ground into powder. Drying them is recommended at very low temperatures in order to best preserve the flavor and aroma. Once they're dried, use a coffee grinder to turn them into a fine powder. A blender or food processor would be a good substitute in the absence of a coffee grinder, but you'll end up with a much more coarse product. The powder you can use in almost anything sweet, but some of the more common uses are adding it to home made ice cream, pancakes, cookies, muffins, or other baked goods. The maple syrup flavor and aroma becomes a dominating focus of whatever you choose to add it to.

Finally, one of my personal favorite mushrooms of this season is Craterellus tubaeformis, aka the yellowfoot, or winter chanterelle. They have a very similar gill structure like the unique key identifiers for all chanterelles, which are gills that fork or web rather than running parallel to each other, and have erratic termination points where the gills connect to the stipe. The top of the mushroom is almost brown, with a dimple in the center of the cap. The name for yellowfoot comes from the stipe, which is a subtle, earthy, golden color. Unlike the golden chanterelles, the stipe on a yellowfoot is hollow.

Yellowfoot lends itself as an easy to forage forest product, growing in small clusters and often prolific within a small area. Whereas it's gold and white cousins typically push up from the duff and come covered in pine needles and debris, yellowfoot tends to grow from the same habitat, only from the surface of the forest floor rather than just beneath the first layer of it. Much like the candy caps, you won't need a knife to harvest them, you can simply pluck them by bending them at their base until they snap. In spite of the fact that yellowfoot are hollow-stemmed and significantly smaller and less dense than their chanterelle cousins, the process of harvesting them involves a lot less cleaning and is very low maintenance. Their size doesn't require any slicing or cooking prep, so with enough care harvesting them in the field, you can simply bring them home and toss them in a skillet, or add them to your favorite savory dish.

The diversity of species available to pick during the winter months offers a wide range of uses in a variety of meals. The versatility of their culinary value will not only expand your palate, but with very little effort, you can easily stock up on side dishes for your winter meals, and enjoy a little more time in the outdoors, rain or shine.

This article was published in the December 2018 issue of Northwest Sportsman Magazine and received 2nd place honors in the 2019 Excellence in Craft awards for the Travel, Camping, Recreation magazine category at the Northwest Outdoor Writers Association conference.

Early Winter Steelhead on the Alsea River

The past few years, the Alsea River has had a slow start to it's winter steelhead season. However, things can swing into action faster than you can call in sick to work on a rainy day. A great deal of my time online in December and January is spent hitting the refresh button on the NOAA river level gauge waiting for that bump and the first group of fish that ride the wave in from tidewater. The fish that move early tend to also move quickly. Some of the lower river spots that are popular areas for salmon anglers can be productive, but hatchery fish harvest numbers for the season have drastically increased on the North Fork vs. the lower river in the past 10 years. That harvest data doesn't do justice to the fact that the earliest winter steelhead are typically caught by lower river plunkers targeting salmon.

During high water events, steelhead will travel closer to the shoreline than salmon in the same areas. The Mike Bauer boat launch has the Caddilac of plunking shacks. complete with a handicapped access fishing platform, a woodburning stove, and a nearby restroom with a flushing toilet. If the water is high and muddy, don't rule out an opportunity to stay warm and dry while waiting for the bell on your rod tip to ring. Cured prawns or eggs with a spin-n-glow plunked in travel lanes in the current closer to shore are a healthy snack for fish on the move.

Regardless of water level, there are a couple lower river staging areas where hatchery fish tend to congregate before moving upriver. Blackberry Campground and Five Rivers Boat Launch have been two remote release sites for twenty thousand traditional broodstock hatchery raised smolts each year since 2012. Most traditional hatchery broodstock tend to jet straight to the hatchery, and the ones that bite are more commonly used for table fare of the anglers who catch them, rather than used for spawning at the hatchery. This is somewhat problematic, as it tends to breed genetics that create hatchery fish that are more successful at reaching the trap than the dinner table. While wild broodstock smolts produce an increased harvest of hatchery adults, these forty thousand traditional hatchery broodstock are released at lower river locations with the intention of them slowing their upriver journey at the locations where they were released as smolts, presenting more angler opportunity for harvest. Unfortunately, harvest data has been inconclusive that these remote releases have actually improved lower river harvest opportunity. The Alsea Sportsman's Association has (unsuccessfully) requested that the regional fish biologist plant forty thousand wild broodstock smolts at the lower river remote release sites (in place of the traditional hatchery broodstock) in an effort for this practice to better serve it's intended purpose of increased harvest opportunity.

Prior to the introduction of the wild broodstock program in 1999, forty thousand smolts were planted into Fall Creek, an Alsea basin tributary where the Oregon Hatchery Research Center is located. Prior to 2006, twenty thousand traditional broodstock smolts were released at Five Rivers Boat Launch and Blackberry Campground as well as Mill Creek and Salmonberry Park, totaling eighty thousand smolts released during different stages of the season, in a practice known as "scatter planting," When you hear old timers talk about "the good ol' days," they're likely referring to a time when they saw a return on a more calculated effort being put into smolt releases of traditional broodstock.

For now, the Blackberry and Five Rivers sites (in theory) are a good option for targeting fresh chrome in the lower river. Unfortunately, many of the traditional broodstock adults still tend to race for the hatchery. It is surely not a coincidence that the North Fork opened to fishing up to the hatchery the same year that the wild broodstock program began in 1999, and that some of the largest creel check numbers occurred 3-4 years afterwards. Unfortunately, due to a few years of consecutive losses of wild broodstock eggs, the Alsea has been in a downswing of creel check numbers in more recent history. Lack of participation in wild broodstock collection by anglers and guides alike due to a mistrust of the program has been an arduous point of contention that has left the fishery in a perpetual state of disrepair. Upgrades to equipment, collection practices and collection sites have all been made in an effort to prevent history from repeating itself, but with most guides directing their attention to other fisheries, collecting wild broodstock has become a challenge for the hatchery. Last year the program depended mostly upon fish caught in the hatchery trap and a handful of bank anglers who collected wild broodstock within sight of the hatchery.

The South Fork of the Alsea contributes a majority of the silt and debris that tend to stain the water in the mainstem of the river. When the water is muddy downstream of the confluence, fishing the North Fork is often the best option to finding visibility and staging areas for fish that have made their way through the bulk of the obstacles downstream. Clemens Park is a good secondary option to find a spot away from the crowd at the hatchery. The trails at Clemens Park are well kept, but access is limited to a boundary of private Weyerhauser property, and the opposite side of the river is private property occupied by local residents. Several stretches of river between Mill Creek and Clemens Park have been closed in recent years due to a lack of respect for private property. The confluence itself is now part of a stretch of river only accessible through purchasing an annual permit through a local fishing club.

The result of the shrinking accessibility on the Alsea and a traditional broodstock steelhead that's been bred like a hatchery-bound racehorse is a perfect storm for crowded anglers near the hatchery. If you're planning to hit the hatchery stretch, prepare for the crowds you're not likely to encounter downriver. Hate on the crowds all you want, they are fishing the final destination for these fish, so naturally the chances for success are often higher the higher upriver you're fishing, particularly when the water is higher too. If the fish are moving through, you'll know soon enough from your own success, or that of the anglers around you. Stats of fish collected at the trap are also posted in print on the bulletin boards in the hatchery parking lot, which much like magazine articles, is valuable information you won't find on the web.

This article was published in the December 2018 issue of Northwest Sportsman Magazine