Hey,I've hunted that area for several years. I think I met his wife,she was very old then. She said her husband past away some years before and she'd show us pictures of him also with a probe about 8' long. We'd help her out with heavy chores like cutting the grass and trimming, tore off and replaced a tin roof on her shed to park and hunt. She lived right across from Fort St. Peter.
She moved away or was put in a nursing home but I still have permission from the present owner to park and hunt around there, at least I did,I havent been up there in 2 years but the guy may still live there. He was pretty cool. Found some awesome shells there. Dug out 22 Confederate 3" Read Bolts with 2 other guys in that area out of 1 hole, got the pics somewhere. The exploded confederate ammunition dump isn't far from there. You could dig square bullets from the crates that had exploded. The confederates blew the dump which was about 10 miles north of Vicksburg. Records showed the town could hear it all the back into town. I got some really neat pics of finds from that area somewhere in boxes I havent upacked,I'll have to see if I can find them. Alot of Union fired Dalghrens and 100lb Parrots found around there. The ironclad Cairo was sunk about 3-5 m south, so everytime a gunboat past there and batteries they unload a rain of naval shells on what they considered rebel sympathizers.
A buddy and I went digging around there once. Then another day he went back and did some hunting. He asked me to help identify a huge thick piece of iron he had found and cleaned up. It was about 6" wide and about 14"-15" long and appeared about 4-5" thick. Also like a splinter. Soon as I looked at it I knew what it was. It was a chunk of a tube. It was off one of the 32lb guns the confederates had spiked and blew up. Weighed about 25lbs and you could see the re-inforcement ring cast on it. It was from the very end of the muzzle. Awsome piece. A melted Louisianna buckle was found right next to the old fort site. Last I seen it was neglected and run down, weeded up. The monument to the fort is still there though.
Really coincidental,I was thinking about that place just a few days ago after I snatched a CZ7aPro off eBay. I was thinking about some of the old places I'd hunted in the past and thought it'd be a good test. Man this is weird.
That's heck of a spot. I used the Spectrum XLT up there. Now I'm really getting the fever after seeing that. I feel a trip back down there is coming on soon.
