A northeast Kansas resident roams eight states with the start of each spring. He hauls a refrigerated trailer, lives in a tent and looks for the morel mushrooms that he’s hunted since childhood.
The Lawrence Journal-World reports that 40-year-old Ryan Gregg, of Lawrence, collected nearly 1,800 pounds of the mushrooms last year in his travels.
He started a website for morel hunters four years ago, when he also started hauling his trailer across the nation’s midsection, starting in Texas and Oklahoma and moving north.
His hunting started when he was about 10 and lived on 80 wooded acres near Lawrence, a hotbed for morels. The mushrooms are prized for their nutty, meaty flavor. Hunters seek them for weeks between late March and mid-May.
