Rita & I quite enjoy going mushroom hunting. We've gotten pretty good at chanterelles and it's rare to get skunked anymore since we know what we're looking for now. I'd like to go looking for morels now, but don't have a spot that we're aware of (people are generally not very forthcoming with mushroom locations). Unfortunately our favorite spot got closed by the DNR last year and the only way in was about a two mile all uphill hike (with a subsequent 2 mile all downhill hike, which hurts even worse). My back won't put up with that, but she's hiked in a couple of times with another friend and come back with pretty good loads of mushrooms (nobody up there except other hikers / bikers). We're looking for another place but have kept striking out. However, hiking in the woods is nice on it's own, and the hound gets exhausted constantly running back & forth between us which is good for him.
We use a couple of Buck knives (Paklite 140) I've dressed up with some paracord and I use an old toothbrush to clean my mushrooms, she prefers a tightly trimmed 1" paintbrush (I trim the bristles down to about 3/4-1" for her). I've had my eye on one of those Opinel knife/brush combos for a while, but what I've got works pretty well.