There are many ways of hunting mushrooms. Probably the most popular is "stick hunting", walking slowly through the woods with a stick, while gently brushing back leaves and trash to expose the culinary delights hiding beneath.

This way works fine for a young person, but after you get old and lazy you tend to look for an easier method.

Still hunting is one of my personal favorites. Everyone knows that mushrooms don't grow like common plants. They pop through the ground in their full-grown state.

Anything the size of a mushroom is bound to make some noise when it pops up, thus still hunting is a viable alternative for anyone who doesn't want to do a lot of unnecessary walking. You merely walk into the woods, locate a likely mushroom area, then sit down and get comfortable.

It is important to listen closely, because small mushrooms don't make a lot of noise coming through the ground. They sound about like a .22-caliber shot going off, and create a minimal amount of ground disturbance. However, the big ones are a different story. They sound like a 12-gauge shotgun, and throw dirt 5 to 10 feet into the air.

This makes it imperative that you wear heavy clothing and head protection, such as a construction hard hat; serious injury can result from falling clods. I once sat down in a rocky area just before a large patch of mushrooms came up, and I suffered severe bruises to my ego and parts of my anatomy.

Several years ago I heard about a mushroom dog. By the time I verified the rumor and located the dog's owner, mushroom season was over and I was unable to see the dog in action.

However, I took the owner at his word, since mushroom hunters, like fishermen, are not prone to lie.

We agreed on a price and I headed home with my new dog, Lacks. His previous owner said, "He isn't really stupid, but he lacks just a little." Lacks had one serious flaw as a mushroom dog. He was half bird dog and half mutt, and he was still-mouthed. He would point mushrooms, but he wouldn't bark "treed" when he located a mushroom.

This made hunting with him harder than stick hunting, since I had to move fast enough to keep him in sight or I would miss his points. Lacks disappeared one day and couldn't be found anywhere. Three days later a neighbor called and said Lacks had been on point in his front yard for three days.

I went to get him, and he was pointing a concrete mushroom yard decoration. After this I decided to sell Lacks and train my own mushroom dog. Since I was already the owner of a smart and beautiful black-and-tan/walker cross, with an excellent mouth, I decided to train her.

Old Leon (yes, Leon is a female, but that's another story) already barked at squirrels, cars and night noises so adding mushrooms wasn't too hard. She can scout out a patch of mushrooms in nothing flat, and then bark treed. She has just one drawback - a taste for mushrooms. She barks until I arrive at the patch, then she eats while I pick. This cuts the take-home in half, but it still beats stick hunting.

Another method is sack hunting. This requires three or four people, but can produce large amounts of mushrooms. You go into the woods with your snipe sack and hold it open while your helpers circle around and drive the mushrooms toward you.

When snipe hunting, the novice usually holds the sack, but I always hold the sack when mushroom hunting because I can stay in one place while the young ones do the walking. The only problem with sack hunting is that if a large amount of mushrooms come toward you at the same time a few might slip by the sides of the sack.

However, this isn't really harmful, since you need to leave a few breeding pairs anyway.

There are one or two other minor methods that can be used, but I don't have time to discuss them right now. I hear Leon barking, and I think I'll go mushroom hunting.