I hunted it about 10 years ago. Stayed in Harrisburg. Hunted a place called Sahara forest.
It was exclusively archery only. You have to get a permit to hunt it. The terrain was a bunch of reclaimed strip pits, not like any I had seen before. They more like piles of loose rock that were steep and had trees growing out of them.
Hard to find the right tree in the right spot with a climber. Lock on or a ground blind would work pretty well. There were some large open area's where the deer would bed and come in towards the strip pits to eat acorns and travel in bottom of them. The place has a paved road that goes in a circle around it. It does get hunted, mostly from locals, best I could tell. The game warden in the area at the time didn't care for people from Tn to much, he checked me one evening and there were some locals that had parked close by and I over herd some comments he was making about Hunters from Tn as I was walking up to my Truck with no light. He seemed to think I had a pistol on me because I was from Tn. Go figure, lol.
I saw some deer there , heard one hell of a fight one evening & saw them running in one of the open areas. I could have killed several times. Nothing what I went to Illinois for. it's pretty tough hunting in there. It's not the terrain, it was the set ups. I only had a climbing stand.
If you get a map of the area (Shawnee) and get out and ride around there are plenty of spots.
There's a good spot behind the Indian statue where you get your permit to hunt the Sahara Forest. The locals are nice at least the ones I met even offered me spots. My brother shot a big non- typical up there not to far from that statue. Lost it in the river. He was sick.
My suggestion to you is go up there one weekend in the next few weeks and ride around and get familiar. Good luck.