I appreciate the replys, it took a couple days for me to realise this forum had a change over.
Well in the area of the Forest (shawnee) I typically go to, is a very rocky unstable road that ends in a swamp/pond.
At the end is tell-tale signs of chew packs, beer cans, camp fire and shot-gun shells. Doesn't seem like this area is too concerned about what kind of characters hang out (so I don't think a Metal Detector would be noticed, probably appreciated if all the trash were picked up), there are alos ATV tracks on the apth as well. These aren't hiking trails.
I detected there yesterday for about 2 hours, its was a ton of trash. Surprisingly on the surface near the water, I found my first find; a 1917 wheat penny. Thats it.
This area of the forest that I researched was established in 1932, so if no one has really come down here, there is probably alot I'm not seeing. I'd be kinda paranoid digging in a State Park, so I'm trying to keep it surface. Problem is, all the solid readings I've been getting have been at 7+ inches
yeah that whole area is like 9 minutes away, LOTS of interesting stories abound about it, here is a little about it (interesting find online as well, the real googled link went to a different page entirely, I got this info by clicking "cached" on the google links):
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Little Egypt
In southern Illinois the rough triangle described by a line from east St. Louis to Lawrenceville, then south to Cairo, at the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers, is known as Little Egypt. It is an area rich in strange folklore and ghost tales, many of which have a basis in fact that should prove interesting to the treasure hunter.
North of Grand Tower on the Mississippi River the rocky promontory known as Devil?Bake Oven is said to be haunted. If true, it should not be surprising. During the keel boat days the boatmen had to disembark at this point, and walked the shore line pulling their crafts behind them via tow lines. Such circumstances made easy pickin's for the river pirates who flocked to the area. Passengers and crew of any vessel that could not fight off the pirates were murdered and robbed. Their bodies were eviscerated, filled with gravel, and dumped into the river. Any cargo that could not immediately be divided among the pirates was transported south for bartering. The boats themselves were often sold down river, only to be ambushed again on the trip north ?more bodies, more loot, and more ghosts to haunt the region.
Among such ruthless and blood-thirsty companions it is likely that each man kept his own share of the loot well hidden; and since death and damnation were considered routine hazards of the profession, it is likely that a number of caches are strewn about the haunted environs.
The Devil's Bake Oven has many ghosts, but Dug Hill, about five miles west of Jonesboro, is haunted by a single specter. During the Civil War, the area along the Dug Hill Road was populated by Union Army deserters, surviving by any means they could ?both fair and foul. The bane of all deserters in Southern Illinois was Provost Marshal Welch who, according to one version, arrested over a dozen of the runaway soldiers before he was murdered by their cohorts in an ambush in 1865. It is Provost Marshal Welch who is said to haunt the road. From a relic hunter's point of view, it is the activities of all those Union deserters in the area that should haunt the imagination.
The Devil's Backbone, just north of Devil's Bake Oven, was also a river pirate lair, with similar legends of phantoms and treasure. In Belleville grave robbers plied their grisly trade until, in the act of cutting a finger bearing a ruby ring off one of the bodies, they discovered that she was not quite dead.
