Oregon Truffle Hunt (Day 2) 1-28-11

Yet another great day in the Oregon wilderness.  Not quite as nice as yesterday, but pretty close if it wasn't  for a little shower here and there.  I managed to hit two different spots today, both with pretty good success.  Our stay at the first location was brief, but productive.  The understory of the woods was a little brushy, and the duff  just wasn't the right feel.  I would have left after 10 minutes, but Darvin proved me wrong.  He found a nice collection of sword ferns, and quickly pulled out 4 Oregon Black Truffles. Just take a look.  Sorry about the camera skills; kinda had my hands full.

After harvesting these quick 4 truffles, we wandered around for another 45 minutes.  In that time we only managed to find one more truffle.  However, this truffle had already been found.  The area looked a little roughed up (maybe a deer), but there it was.  A half eaten truffle just sitting in the dirt. [Really small in the center of the picture]

The second location was a little more what I was looking for.  Pretty open, nice duff, a few ferns, and middle aged Douglas Firs.

Like yesterday, right off the bat we came upon a few rake marks.

However, the past hunters must have given up pretty quickly, there were only about 8 or 9 marks within 20 feet. And yes, if anyone was wondering, I did clean up there marks. Come on people, is it that hard to rake the dirt back in place? Really?  Well, it's too bad they gave up so quickly because just a few feet farther and Darvin was on it.

He was a little more sporadic this time, but he still made some nice finds.  All together on day 2 about 25 harvestable ones, and maybe 10 "catch and releases" like this one.

We also had a bunch of other finds today:

a bunch of Jelly Tooths

A few Western Rattlesnake Plantain Orchids (Goodyera oblongifolia)

Some frog eggs; Thanks to Don for helping with this ID.

and two really small "Little Brown Mushrooms"

We also found two kinds of Coral mushrooms, a few different kinds of Splash Cups, and 10 or more different little brown mushrooms.  So like I said, overall a really good day.  Here is the total find for the day.

In conclusion, the trip was a total success.  We found all kinds of truffles; a total of 3 1/4 pounds. Not to mention, one huge one that weighed in at 1.1 pounds!!!!!  We had great weather, and most importantly, Darvin passed his training with flying colors.

Good Job Darvin!

Another Truffle Hunt near Corvallis, OR 1-27-11

So it has been a little over 5 weeks since we made our last trip down to the good old Corvallis, OR area, and it really couldn't have been a better day.  The whole ~250mile drive down to Corvallis was a gray and foggy one, however, when I pulled within 10 miles of my final location, the sun decided to show its face and rapidly burned off the fog.  It was crazy bright, almost too bright for my Seattle eyes; and in the mid to upper 50's.

Darvin and I got to our location at roughly 11am; at which time, I grabbed my camera, my hand rake, Darvin's truffle training device, and Darvin's treats, and we set off into the woods.

Much like last time, I came down here blind with nothing but the help of Google Earth to help me find the right type of habitat: middle aged Douglas Firs (~18 diameter or larger), slight slope, facing south or west, and a nice healthy layer of duff.  Nevertheless, right off the bat I knew we were going to have some good luck.  We saw all kinds of evidence of truffles in the area. First the native truffle hunters......Deer tracks

and Squirrel digs

Then the other truffle hunters.  We ran into all kinds of rake marks.  Literally every tree had a 5'-10' ring raked around it.  Even though the past hunters did there job and replaced there rake marks, it just looked sad.  So I knew truffles were here, now we just needed to see if there were any left.  I started off pretty slow with Darvin.  For the first 30 minutes we just played our little game.  I hid the Truffle device and Darvin would find it almost instantly and look up for his treat.  He was ready.  We walked a little deeper into the woods and I started with my voice commands.  Darvin seemed like he was on the trail, so I started the film to show-off his skills and Beep Beep Beep my freakin camera died.  So unfortunately no more pictures or videos from the hunt.

We started a little slow.  Darvin seemed to be all over the place so I decided to use some of the animal tracking methods we used last time, and sure enough a nice pocket of 6 Oregon White Truffles.  I wasn't really sure what was up with Darvin and then all of a sudden he B-lined for this sun spot in the woods and began scratching the ground.  Sure enough he was on-top of a perfect golf ball sized Oregon Black Truffle.  From there it was just ALL Darvin.  I anxiously followed his every zig and every zag and we slowly began to fill up my harvest bag.  I think I can honestly say that Darvin is now an Oregon Black Truffle hunting expert.  Even after the huge raking of these woods, Darvin still managed to find ~30 harvestable Oregon Black Truffles and at least 20 more mushy or half eaten Oregon Black Truffles.  Not to mention, the largest Truffle I have ever seen. (494.4grams or 1.1pounds)

Darvin really out did himself today. Just take a look at the final harvest.

Now with a quarter in the middle for scale.

So once again, it was a great, great, great day today, and hopefully we can do the same tomorrow now that I have some fully charged batteries.

Look out Truffles, here comes Darvin.

Darvin’s Truffle Training Update

So it's been a little over 3 weeks since we had our trip down to Corvallis, OR.  We had some pretty good luck, and I've made some great truffle oils.  However, I saved a couple of ripe Black Oregon Truffles to help me train Darvin.

I started by making a Truffle training device.  Its really high tech; an old Chapstick container with a bunch of holes drilled into it.

So the training has gone pretty straight forward.  I started inside for the first 5 days.  For the first 2 days I would lock Darvin in the bathroom and place the truffle container in tricky but visible areas such as in the corner of a room or next to a chair leg.  During these first 2 days I just really wanted to make sure that he was making a connection between finding the truffle container and getting a great meaty treat.  Then for the next 3 days I started to make it a little more difficult; in the couch cushions, under our rugs, etc...  Take a look. This is on day 5.

On day 6 we started our training outside in the back yard (roughly 20'x100').  We pretty much followed the same routine.  The first day I just laid it in grass.  The following days I started to bury it just below the grass surface.  Here is some footage from day 7.

Here is some more footage of Darvin on day 10.  The last day in the backyard.

On day 11 we moved to the front yard, about 50'x70'.  Same procedure. Here is some footage from day 12.

I plan on staying in the front yard until day 20, and then we are going to give it a try at our nearby park.  I'll keep you posted!!!!

*only 5 more months until MOREL SEASON*

Truffle Hunting in Corvallis, OR 12-18-10

So we finally made it down to our neighbors to the south.  Jude, myself, and our friend from Portland Nate went on a great trip to the Corvallis, Oregon area.  None of us have ever really gone on a truffle hunt before, but we all did our homework before hand. I did a lot of forestry research, and found some great middle aged Douglas-Fir patches to explore. In addition, we all brushed up on our animal tracking skills.  Since Darvin my dog isn't trained yet, we had to use the signs and signals of the area squirrels, voles, and deer.

We got to our first location at about noon on Saturday. The weather man was calling for 100% rain, but it actually ended up being a relatively nice day. Some sunny skies with an occasional drizzle, and a high of 40-45. We quickly jumped into the woods full-swing. We checked out about 15 squirrel digs until we came up with our first find. My buddy Jude pulled up a Rhizopogon (I think parksii).

We continued on for like 10 minutes until we came into a a patch of Douglas-firs that looked like the photos and videos we had seen on the web.

Jude found a fresh squirrel dig and began to dig the perimeters of the hole when he came up on a super nice patch of Oregon White Truffles (Tuber oregonense).

From there we continued on for about 3 more hours and had quite a bit of good luck.  I couldn't even believe it, but Jude and myself found a total of 3 Oregon Black Truffles (Leucangium carthusianum).  Sorry I don't have any field pictures, but at this point in time I was just coated in mud. We found about 30 more Oregon White Truffles.  Here is a pretty good picture of what an Oregon White Truffle looks like when hunting.

We also found about 25 Hymenogaster subalpinus truffles. Once again, too muddy for any photos.  While out there we also ran into a little wildlife too. Check out this Orange bellied Ensatina (I think Ensatina eschscholtzii)

.

So when it was all said and done on Saturday, this is what we had: a few Oregon Black Truffles, a bunch of Oregon White Truffles, some Hymenogaster subalpinus, and one Rhizopogon parksii. The Rhizopogon is not in the photo.

That night we hit the streets of Corvallis.  You could definitely say we were celebrating our find.  It was a long night, so we got a little later start than planned.  We hit up  two new locations. We had some good luck, but not nearly as good as Saturday.  The weather was a little colder and it was raining much harder.  We found about 10 more Oregon White Truffles, and a bunch more Hymenogaster subalpinus. It was a great trip filled with fun and truffles, and I definitely can't wait until I can get back down there with Darvin.  So I guess truffle hunting class starts today.

Below is Nate and Jude showing how clean Truffle hunting is....

and Darvin displaying how wet it is.

A nice close up of the Oregon Black Truffle

The inside of one of the Oregon Black Truffle; needs a little more ripening.

The inside of the Oregon White Truffle. From left to right (on top)  it goes from under ripe, to almost perfect, to past its prime.

The inside of a few of the Hymenogaster subalpinus truffles.

The final harvest.