South Dakota has one of the LARGEST mycology clubs in the world! If you like to hunt mushrooms then come on down to the state that took a perfectly beautiful mountain and blew it up with TNT so we could all stare at a bunch of dead people’s faces. That’s right folks! Who needs the Pacific Northwest when you can battle mosquitoes the size of small birds just to find half dried-up mushrooms on those rainy weeks that happen about twice a year!?

Ya, I lied. South Dakota doesn’t have a mycology club unless you consider me and my two boys a “club”. BUT! If you love mushrooms and are interested in starting a mycology club I’d love to meet you (send me an email HERE). I promise I’m not that weird. See:

My goal is to help organize a contact list of friends who would be interested in meeting up on those rainy weeks where there are too many mushrooms for one person to identify (or eat!). At the very least we can meet up and have a safe space to say words like mycorrhizal and Laetiporus Sulphureus without getting strange looks from the people we are talking too.

Personally, I have been hunting wild mushrooms since 2021 and I’m excited for the mountain of mycological education that I have yet to learn. I’ve noticed that here in Sioux Falls, SD the best times of the year are early spring and fall. During the summer we find a lot of polypores, inky caps, and woody mushrooms but unless the sky is dark/rainy most of our mushroom hunting turns into foraging for berries and yummy greens. If you would like to see my personal catalog (i.e. guide) for mushrooms near the southern border of South Dakota and Minnesota then check out this page:

If you are looking for the very best mushroom field guide for South Dakota I highly recommend Mushrooms of the Upper Midwest by Teresa Marrone and the enormous book titled Mushrooms Demystified by David Aurora. David’s book is HUGE and an absolute must for any mushroom hunter that plans to eat their harvest of mushrooms. I also highly recommend Mushrooms of the Midwest by Michael Kuo. Although it might be a little too heavy for beginners, it has become my personal favorite due to its use of scientific names and its very intuitive identification key.

If you are interested in helping start South Dakota’s first mycology club then please contact me HERE.