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lunchb0x
Rookie

Registered: 07/16/16
Posts: 20
Loc: Victoria, Australia
Last seen: 2 years, 6 months
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Hunting Techniques
#23461865 - 07/21/16 07:37 AM (7 years, 6 months ago) |
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Hey all. I'm a n00b to all this hunting business as I only discovered this site and the fact that I now live in an area (Melbourne) which is ripe with "mad haulz" of Psilocybe Subaeruginosa. I've spent the last couple of weeks reading as much as I can in this forum to try and get a good idea of what I should be looking for, mostly all the "Official Victoria Season" threads going back the last five years or so.
My problem is that after over 40km of walking through various forests/tracks/roadsides/parks/gardens/reserves/meadian strips in the past week, I have found a grand total of one small sub! I realise we're at the tail end of the season but going by previous years there have still been plenty of finds at this time of year. There have been some fairly decent patches of rain recently (although not constant for days at a time), and temperatures in the areas I'm looking seem to be within the right range still. So I wanted to ask for some general tips on how you guys hunt, per haps I'm not doing it as efficiently as I could be. I'm not asking for specific locations or about the weather, I know that's against the rules.
- When in a park or forest, do you tend to stray far off the beaten paths/tracks to check areas the general public wouldn't go? I've tried that in some places but feel like if people see me doing that then they're going to wonder what I'm doing. I've already had a few stares as I'm walking through brush/trees in the corner of a park when there's a perfectly good path not far away!
- When you're searching, are you generally just walking at a normal pace and scanning, or are you going slow and pulling back brush and lifting bark/branches/whatever? Again, if feels like it looks pretty sus if you're doing it in a public area!
- How do you decide on new areas to check out? I've gone through every park and reserve in the nearby vicinity according to Google maps but I'm guessing everyone else is doing the same thing, so I'm most likely checking areas which have been cleared out previously. There are some areas of bushland around here which don't have any tracks in them which I could potentially just pull over on the side of the road and start "bush-bashing", is that a common thing to do?
I think that's about it for now, any advice would be appreciated. Maybe it's just a case of the season ending, but it would be great to find even just a few subs so I could have at least one trip this year! Thanks in advance.
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Psychedelic Pupil
Goober



Registered: 09/27/12
Posts: 744
Loc: The bright side of life
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Re: Hunting Techniques [Re: lunchb0x]
#23462138 - 07/21/16 09:31 AM (7 years, 6 months ago) |
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I'm not in your area but from what I understand the season is pretty much over for subs there. I keep my eye on sub posts just for fun (they are very rare near me) and it looks like a couple people who know of established patches are still finding a few. Maybe other people in your area can comment more on that.
I can give you some pointers on foraging in general.
I have found several species of edible mushrooms right along a path through a forest. Yellow chantarelles, black trumpets, reishi, etc. It really depends on who else may be foraging in that area and how good they are at it. Sometimes I do get strange looks wandering in the woods just off a trail and sometimes people even ask what I'm doing. I just say that I'm foraging and try to leave it at that. If they ask "what for" I say I'm just looking around because I've heard there's several edibles to be found" Pretty much being as vague as possible. Most people don't give a shit and may be curious but won't say anything to you. You could say anything to throw them off though. Tell them you have a rock collection and you've heard there's some good schist (yes, it's actually a rock) out here.
When you're searching you have to actively scan. Mushrooms are tricky little fuckers sometimes and for some reason you can't see them well in your peripheral vision. Personally, I like to walk and scan back and forth for a while, maybe 50 meters, then squat down and scan all around me. There's been times when I've squatted down to roll a smoke and realized I was in the middle of a patch that I hadn't seen walking.
As far as deciding your area, it's something you learn over time. Maybe people looking for subs around you can give you more specific pointers but searching for videos of people finding them can help show you the areas they are in. I just mentioned this in another post, but once you find them pay close attention to every detail of where you found them. Is that area slightly warmer or cooler, does it feel more or less humid, does it have a certain smell, what foliage is around. If you pay attention to details you'll eventually be able to recognize certain areas for certain shrooms.
Good luck!
-------------------- I'd like to think I'm smart enough to realize how much knowledge I don't have.
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Anglerfish
hearing things



Registered: 09/08/10
Posts: 18,646
Loc: Norvegr
Last seen: 5 hours, 11 minutes
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Re: Hunting Techniques [Re: lunchb0x]
#23462185 - 07/21/16 09:49 AM (7 years, 6 months ago) |
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Search more, and look harder. You'll eventually find them, and from then on the game gets easier.
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Alan Rockefeller
Mycologist

Registered: 03/10/07
Posts: 48,276
Last seen: 2 hours, 16 minutes
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Quote:
Anglerfish said: Search more, and look harder. You'll eventually find them, and from then on the game gets easier.
Hard work and putting in lots of time sounds like something a Donald Trump supporter would say. These days with the technology we have, hard work is no longer the key to success.
The key to success is programming a drone to fly a crosshatch pattern through the woods, using a high resolution camera to avoid trees and catalog which species of mushroom occurs where. You then get a google maps overlay which can show every Russula, Leucopaxillus or Psilocybe in a large radius. The tricky part is the mechanism to switch the drone battery, so it can fly hundreds of missions in a couple days instead of just a few dozen because you have to switch the battery by hand.
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Anglerfish
hearing things



Registered: 09/08/10
Posts: 18,646
Loc: Norvegr
Last seen: 5 hours, 11 minutes
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Quote:
Alan Rockefeller said: Hard work and putting in lots of time sounds like something a Donald Trump supporter would say. These days with the technology we have, hard work is no longer the key to success.
I doubt The Dump and his followers really want to do any hard work. They just like to shout a lot and push people around.
Quote:
The key to success is programming a drone to fly a crosshatch pattern through the woods, using a high resolution camera to avoid trees and catalog which species of mushroom occurs where. You then get a google maps overlay which can show every Russula, Leucopaxillus or Psilocybe in a large radius. The tricky part is the mechanism to switch the drone battery, so it can fly hundreds of missions in a couple days instead of just a few dozen because you have to switch the battery by hand.
Would it be possible to make a remote DNA scanning system which checks the sequences on the fly?
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★★★★★
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Psychedelic Pupil
Goober



Registered: 09/27/12
Posts: 744
Loc: The bright side of life
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Quote:
Alan Rockefeller said: The key to success is programming a drone to fly a crosshatch pattern through the woods, using a high resolution camera to avoid trees and catalog which species of mushroom occurs where.
I was just talking to a friend about something very similar to this. Wondering if a drone could be equipped with a thermo cam or some other light frequency camera that would make the mushrooms stand out against the forest floor.
I have started hiking with a spotting scope and monopod so if I see something from far off I can find out if it's worth walking over.
-------------------- I'd like to think I'm smart enough to realize how much knowledge I don't have.
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h0ldthedoor
HODOR



Registered: 06/25/16
Posts: 510
Loc: North of The Wall
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Quote:
Alan Rockefeller said: The tricky part is the mechanism to switch the drone battery, so it can fly hundreds of missions in a couple days instead of just a few dozen because you have to switch the battery by hand.
Something like this?
or this
What a world we live in...
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Always keep your foes confused. If they are never certain who you are or what you want, they cannot know what you are like to do next. Sometimes the best way to baffle them is to make moves that have no purpose, or even seem to work against you. – Petyr Baelish
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Alan Rockefeller
Mycologist

Registered: 03/10/07
Posts: 48,276
Last seen: 2 hours, 16 minutes
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Quote:
Anglerfish said: I doubt The Dump and his followers really want to do any hard work. They just like to shout a lot and push people around.
Yes, but that's hard work, no?
Quote:
Quote:
The key to success is programming a drone to fly a crosshatch pattern through the woods, using a high resolution camera to avoid trees and catalog which species of mushroom occurs where. You then get a google maps overlay which can show every Russula, Leucopaxillus or Psilocybe in a large radius. The tricky part is the mechanism to switch the drone battery, so it can fly hundreds of missions in a couple days instead of just a few dozen because you have to switch the battery by hand.
Would it be possible to make a remote DNA scanning system which checks the sequences on the fly?
Not with current technology - with what we have today I need the mushroom in hand and about 16 hours of time to get a sequence.
Quote:
Psychedelic Pupil said: I was just talking to a friend about something very similar to this. Wondering if a drone could be equipped with a thermo cam or some other light frequency camera that would make the mushrooms stand out against the forest floor.
I don't think so - you'd need to find some frequency of light that the mushrooms reflect better than the surrounding organic material - and I don't think such a frequency exists. Most mushrooms are pretty much the same color as everything else, even when you look with frequencies that the human eye can't see like UV and IR. Especially Psilocybes, with their drab colors would be hard to detect - it may be possible with Gymnopilus and Hypholoma fasciculare because they convert UV light into visible light pretty efficiently.
Quote:
h0ldthedoor said: Something like this?
Exactly!
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Matai


Registered: 05/04/14
Posts: 1,016
Loc: NZ
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I personally think that if you genuinely wanted to get an edge hunting mushrooms, training a dog would be the best way. Dogs are incredible working animals if they're adequately trained, and are better than almost all machines designed to detect, well, anything.
I'm sure you could train dogs to sniff out a particular species of mushroom too, or a particular genus if you wanted, seeing as how some are particularly distinctive even to a human's nose.
-------------------- All that we see or seem Is but a dream within a dream
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Lucis
Nutritional Yeast

Registered: 03/28/15
Posts: 15,622
Last seen: 1 month, 29 days
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Re: Hunting Techniques [Re: Matai]
#23464069 - 07/21/16 09:26 PM (7 years, 6 months ago) |
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Quote:
Matai said: I personally think that if you genuinely wanted to get an edge hunting mushrooms, training a dog would be the best way. Dogs are incredible working animals if they're adequately trained, and are better than almost all machines designed to detect, well, anything.
I'm sure you could train dogs to sniff out a particular species of mushroom too, or a particular genus if you wanted, seeing as how some are particularly distinctive even to a human's nose.
They're better for hunting truffles than pigs because they don't try to eat what they find.
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h0ldthedoor
HODOR



Registered: 06/25/16
Posts: 510
Loc: North of The Wall
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Re: Hunting Techniques [Re: Lucis]
#23465045 - 07/22/16 07:03 AM (7 years, 6 months ago) |
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There's even a thread about how to train dogs to seek out mushrooms, here on the forums.
https://www.shroomery.org/forums/showflat.php/Number/10247655
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Always keep your foes confused. If they are never certain who you are or what you want, they cannot know what you are like to do next. Sometimes the best way to baffle them is to make moves that have no purpose, or even seem to work against you. – Petyr Baelish
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Anglerfish
hearing things



Registered: 09/08/10
Posts: 18,646
Loc: Norvegr
Last seen: 5 hours, 11 minutes
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Quote:
h0ldthedoor said:
That's funky.
Just read that they are using drones to search for cloudberries across the moors and tundras of Northern Norway, and thus even in a scant season like this, they're able to find sufficient amounts all the same.
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★★★★★
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Psychedelic Pupil
Goober



Registered: 09/27/12
Posts: 744
Loc: The bright side of life
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I know we're slightly co-opting this thread but all this still falls under "hunting techniques" right?
Quote:
Alan Rockefeller said: I don't think so - you'd need to find some frequency of light that the mushrooms reflect better than the surrounding organic material - and I don't think such a frequency exists. Most mushrooms are pretty much the same color as everything else, even when you look with frequencies that the human eye can't see like UV and IR. Especially Psilocybes, with their drab colors would be hard to detect - it may be possible with Gymnopilus and Hypholoma fasciculare because they convert UV light into visible light pretty efficiently.
I did a little more poking around on this idea. This is from a NASA article:
"Shortwave infrared (SWIR) light includes wavelengths between 1,100 and 3,000 nanometers. Water absorbs shortwave infrared light in three regions: 1,400, 1,900, and 2,400 nanometers. The more water there is, even in soil, the darker the image will appear at these wavelengths. This means SWIR measurements can help scientists estimate how much water is present in plants and soil." Since mushrooms contain more water than many plants do you think SWIR would work to differentiate them on the forest floor?
I also found this from Frontiers in Plant Science: Ectomycorrhizal identification in environmental samples of tree roots by Fourier-transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy. Excerpt:
"FTIR spectroscopy has already been successfully applied to detect and identify fungi (Galichet et al., 2001; Mohaček-Grošev et al., 2001; Erukhimovitch et al., 2005; Naumann et al., 2005; Naumann, 2009). However, in these studies, the fungi were cultivated under strictly controlled growth conditions to avoid alterations of the FTIR spectra due to fungal responses to environmental changes. Consequently, the variation of the chemical fingerprints was entirely due to the inherent attributes of the fungal taxa under identical milieu conditions. For example, wood-inhabiting and degrading fungi were distinguished by FTIR fingerprinting (Erukhimovitch et al., 2005; Naumann et al., 2005; Linker and Tsror Lahkim, 2008). In a pioneering study, Calderon et al. (2009) showed that FTIR spectroscopy could be used to discriminate between arbuscular mycorrhizal and non-mycorrhizal root cultures. However, studies that distinguish the symbiotic organisms in situ are currently lacking."
I realize using FTIR in the field is not really possible but I did find it interesting that they could identify several species with this method. I found these 2 cited studies particularity interesting: Mohaček-Grošev et al., 2001 - Naumann, 2009
Article link if anyone is interested: http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fpls.2014.00229/full
-------------------- I'd like to think I'm smart enough to realize how much knowledge I don't have.
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Adden

Registered: 06/04/03
Posts: 39,201
Loc:
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One early morning hunting thing I've done is just flash a bright light quick at an area and use the residual imprint for where to step and where to start foraging. Mushrooms also shine by moonlight when damp and that helps but ninja gear required if public park picking. Usually I scout places out first but if I beat sunrise and get a jump on it, I was never there.
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