They say it's like Easter egg hunting, but for grown-ups.
For morel mushroom fans, April means one thing: hunting time.
"I get excited when I pass through a clearing and they're visible," Shawn Berry said.
Berry, Jefferson City's self-described American mushroom pirate, has been foraging morels since he was a child. By now, he's become fairly good at it.
And to collect a decent harvest, you pretty much have to be. Morels are notoriously camouflage.
To boost your odds of finding the hard-to-spot fungi, Berry recommends a technique called retina burn: Look at as many photos of morels as you can before you head to the woods.
"You can see that honeycomb pattern faster," he said.
Berry's favorite mushroom-rich spots are dead trees, particularly ash and elm. Mushrooms feed on the cellulose dead trees dump into the ground, he said.
River bottoms and south-facing hills are common spots to find morels, but certainly not the only ones.
"I've seen morels grow where they're not supposed to," Berry said.
Of course, you also need to follow land laws.
"You certainly want to make sure if you're gonna be on private land, that you have permission from the landowner," said Robert Hemmelgarn, a media spokesman for the Missouri Department of Conservation.
If you're hunting in a public conservation area, that's fine, as long as you consume your harvest yourself. Selling them requires a special permit.
Other types of land - say, a state park or city park - may have their own rules. Find out what they are before you hunt. Then, have fun.
"In terms of public land, it would be important to find out who manages the land and what rules they have in place," Hemmelgarn said. "Mushroom hunting is a great way to get out and discover nature in the springtime."
Hunters who do obtain those special permits often sell them to restaurants and at farmers markets.
Hemmelgarn recommends Berry's retina burn technique, but not just for the sake of finding mushrooms. You have to find the right kind. The wrong ones could be dangerous.
"If you're lucky enough to find wild mushrooms, you want to be very sure what you're getting, because there are poisonous mushrooms," he said. "Fresh mushrooms are delicious, and foraging for them is a great way to spend outdoors in the spring."
"Spring" is a key word - the "when" is as important as the "where."
"It's a very small window of opportunity to pick them," Garry Vaught said.
Vaught owns Beks Restaurant in downtown Fulton and organizes the town's annual Morels and Microbrews festival, the sixth annual event scheduled from noon-4 p.m. April 28 in Fulton's Brick District.
Your best chances of finding them are in April. Ideal weather patterns for morel growing are warm - but not too warm - and rainy.
Like his buddy Shawn Berry, Vaught has been morel hunting since he was young.
"My dad would take me when I was a kid," he said. " It's a lot of gratification to be out in the woods enjoying nature and to come home to something that tastes so awesome."
For more information about morel mushroom hunting, visit https://nature.mdc.mo.gov/discover-nature/activities/mushroom-hunting. For more information about the sixth annual Morels & Microbrews Festival, visit http://www.thebrickdistrict.com/morels---microbrews.html.