dirtyJohn
Hero Member
- Nov 30, 2007
- 643
- 47
- Detector(s) used
- Fisher F75 LTD2, Tesoro Tiger Shark, DetectorPro Uniprobe, DetectorPro Pistol Probe
- Primary Interest:
- All Treasure Hunting
Well, I decided to go out with the MD and my GPS to check out a site I've been looking into. It just so happened to be in a park run by the Cook county forest preserve district. I know it's not allowed but I thought I had them on a technicality. I've been there before and I found an area on google earth that got me curious. A cool thing with Google Earth is if you use the timeline option, you can sometimes find a picture of the area taken in the fall, when the leaves are down. You can really see well in the woods and find the old paths when combined with the old Illinois Ariel photos from the thirties. Anyways I walked around in the woods for a while using the waypoints on my GPS that I set from Google Earth and found the area I wanted to check out. I found this old copper buckle (very pliable). I figured it was a kid’s buckle from a cowboy suit or maybe some dress buckle. It's way to soft and bendable to be used as a belt buckle. I found another 1919 wheatie close by.
Everything was looking up when I then realized my cell phone wasn't in my coat pocket and thought I must of dropped it so I started back tracking my foot steps all the way back to my car. My eyes were on the ground scanning for my phone when I heard someone on a bullhorn. I looked up and there was a cook county forest preserve cop. I started walking towards him and when I got up to him, he informed me that I was not allowed to MD in the forest preserve and went through the whole "No disturbing the vegetation and turning of sod" that it was considered vandalism.
He seemed like a nice guy and just doing his job, so I kept a civil tongue in my head and told him that I never hunt in the manicured lawn part of the park and the forest floor is just dead leaves, dead branches and mud so there is no sod to turn and as far as disturbing the vegetation is concerned, I didn't say anything but couldn't help but thinking exactly how do you disturb vegetation. Isn't walking on grass disturbing the vegetation? After all, I didn't dig up any plants. I think it's a case of lazy legislation that could be allot more specific. Kind of like performing surgery with a hatchet rather than a scalpel.
I'm kind of bummed about this site since it shows so much promise and I can't blame the cop for doing his job but I may go back there and detect again. If I get arrested, they will have to prove that I turned sod or destroyed plant life. Since I don't do either and metal detecting is not illeagal by itself. It's worth it because I like this hobby and everyday we seem to have fewer public areas to hunt, so if we don't occasionally challenge these laws they will continue to pile them on.
Sorry about the ramble but this pisses me off. I'm tired of all these nature freaks that take over public land and tell you not to stray off the path and don't touch anything.
Happy Fricking Hunting,
John
P.S. The cell phone I thought I lost was sitting on my desk at home. Grrrrr.
Everything was looking up when I then realized my cell phone wasn't in my coat pocket and thought I must of dropped it so I started back tracking my foot steps all the way back to my car. My eyes were on the ground scanning for my phone when I heard someone on a bullhorn. I looked up and there was a cook county forest preserve cop. I started walking towards him and when I got up to him, he informed me that I was not allowed to MD in the forest preserve and went through the whole "No disturbing the vegetation and turning of sod" that it was considered vandalism.
He seemed like a nice guy and just doing his job, so I kept a civil tongue in my head and told him that I never hunt in the manicured lawn part of the park and the forest floor is just dead leaves, dead branches and mud so there is no sod to turn and as far as disturbing the vegetation is concerned, I didn't say anything but couldn't help but thinking exactly how do you disturb vegetation. Isn't walking on grass disturbing the vegetation? After all, I didn't dig up any plants. I think it's a case of lazy legislation that could be allot more specific. Kind of like performing surgery with a hatchet rather than a scalpel.
I'm kind of bummed about this site since it shows so much promise and I can't blame the cop for doing his job but I may go back there and detect again. If I get arrested, they will have to prove that I turned sod or destroyed plant life. Since I don't do either and metal detecting is not illeagal by itself. It's worth it because I like this hobby and everyday we seem to have fewer public areas to hunt, so if we don't occasionally challenge these laws they will continue to pile them on.
Sorry about the ramble but this pisses me off. I'm tired of all these nature freaks that take over public land and tell you not to stray off the path and don't touch anything.
Happy Fricking Hunting,
John
P.S. The cell phone I thought I lost was sitting on my desk at home. Grrrrr.
