>>24670431. learn to ID hardwood trees
2. google "mushrooms that willl kill me in my state" and "edible mushrooms in my state"
actively seek out both, collect photos, get this-make notes in a note pad about taste smell texture and habitat/growing conditions.
3. realize mushrooms are inconsistent as fuck, that you can easily fall into false pattern recognition traps, and and instead learn to recognize the patterns and conditions that produce a mushroom that you 100% don't want to pick, learn to forage by trying to REJECT as many mushrooms as you can rather than COLLECT as many mushrooms as you can
most importantly go find fungi, but photos and notes on growing conditions, location, time since last rainfall, what rotting wood it's growing on, what living trees surround it, etc is the best place to start before you even start worrying about putting your hands on a mushroom. knowing WHERE and WHEN NOT to look by intuition will eliminate more undesirable mushrooms than doing the opposite will yield desirable mushrooms.
