Hit the woods now. The morel season is upon us. You’ll have to look closely for the little black and gray sponges that are popping up, but they have arrived. We’ll need above-normal temperatures and precipitation from Tuesday through April 28 for the big yellows.

The long-range forecast calls for above normal temperatures and precipitation the last eight days of April. If that holds true, this could be a great morel season, especially for the big yellows. My last find of 2007 was May 3. It was also the largest.

As of Tuesday, only a few morels were being reported on www.morels.com for Indiana. However, weather from Wednesday through today has been conducive to morels showing themselves.

The Web site www.morels.com is not just a message board for all the states; it also offers tips on hunting, freezing and drying morels. Another piece on this Web site worth reading is the one about ticks.

The mystery about morels will never go away, but we do learn a little more about how they exist. When a spore goes airborne, it has to come in contact with another spore. I’m not sure if there are male and female spores or if blacks work with grays or yellows — probably not. When two compatible spores connect, they eventually fall to the ground. They develop root systems and normally won’t send up the first morels for five years.

When my daughter Jourdan was 8 years old, I took pictures of her holding two big yellow morels. Five years later, two large yellows came up about eight feet from where she was standing. These two morels grew between an apple and pine tree.

I wanted to watch these two morels mature. They soon dried to look like old pieces of shoe leather. Three years have passed without another morel coming up in that spot. I believe the root systems are still there though.

It is easy to post your morel find on www.morels.com, and I encourage you to do so. If you read this column, please put RLB at the end of your sentence or e-mail me about your find.

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Tim Brobst was probably daydreaming while trolling his deep running Rapala at Shadyside Lake last week. The hit and fight that ensued gave Tim and his father, Bob, all they could handle.

What Tim had on the business end of his rod was an 8-pound plus wiper. A wiper is a cross between a white bass and a striper. The Shadyside Lake record is 16 pounds.

The Indiana DNR stocks 1,000 fingerling wipers in Shadyside every two years. The early spring is the time most are caught. The little ones look like white bass, but have offset lines on their sides. These fish are not good table fare but are great fighters. Please do as the Brobsts did and release them. They are stocked to keep the shad population in check.