Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations "Witchin" water wells?

Dave, would you venture your opinion on “witchin” water well locations?

This subject has been discussed in depth on the forum previously, but not by a professional with your credentials.

FWIW, I have had only one experience with a witcher, and it was a loooong time ago in Arkansas.
Perhaps 30 years ago, my folks needed a water well at the little cabin just built that we used for a vacation place. It was extremely critical to hit it right since the vast cost of the well would be incurred drilling thru a substantial layer of granite.
They befriended one of the local ol' timers; a guy named Plez (phonetic spelling). Plez witched with 2 long, narrow sticks. He would walk around with the sticks and watch the skinny tips. When he found the spot, he said the tips of the sticks would dip once for every 10 feet of depth to water. He counted off 11 dips and said to drill "right here". They did; hit water at 114'.

I beleave it works, I've even done it. It's neat when the branch turns you can't stop it. We used a forked branch from an apple tree, but I think sassafras works better. I don't know how to tell how deep it is but I have heard of people who can.

Many years ago, my employer at the time, sent me to a rental property to dig up a water line. He told me where he thought it was and I ended up digging several 3' deep holes and couldn't find it. He stopped to check on my progress and then pulled out two wires bent at 90 degrees with one leg about 5 times longer than the other. He started slowly walking to intersect the pipe when the two wires pulled toward each other. He stopped about 10' from where he told me to dig and said "this is it." I basically told him he was full of it in the most respectfully way I could. Being paid by the hour, I dug and sure enough there it was about 2 1/2' down. He showed me how and I've been witchin' myself ever since. My personal greatest feat was locating about half a dozen geothermal ground loop lines near a proposed foundation location for an addition I was doing. I've never tried a stick but what seems to work best for me is to take a wire coat hanger and and cut it so you end up with two roughly 16" long pieces (cut off the hook and twist). Put a 90 degree bend about 3"-4" from the end and leave the rest straight. Hold the short ends lightly between your index, middle finger and thumb so the longer ends are level and sort of balance straight out in front of you. The lighter they are balanced the more sensitive. Start walking slowly and when the long ends pull together you've found water, well hopefully. They pull together almost like they're magnetized. I usually try to cross the area from several directions just to make sure but I don't recall any conflicting readings.

No one has ever been able to explain why it works but I'm a believer.

george, here’s my tale.

although under different pretenses/applications, my experiences are very much like ryan's.

we laughed at the concept of witching in college. we viewed it akin to a 19th century snake oil salesman, just another archaic cultural practice with no basis in science, no valid explanation, no real case studies, just a bunch of claims that it worked, and as many claims that it didnt.

fast forward 10 years....dave buys property in el dorado. dave needs a well. dave has a busy body neighbor (JB) that wants to help pick a spot. JB (same fella who helped w/ my electrical system recently) is an extremely knowledgeable guy and dave has a lot of respect for him except on this little matter of witchin……….his tools of choice are thick copper wire cut and bent similar to what ryan described. JB presents dave with his own custom pair of witchin rods and says he’ll teach him how to do it. for the most part, dave has an open mind, so he condescendingly goes along with this knowing it’s a bunch of melarky.

so I’m out there hiking around the hillsides grasping these copper rods, nothing is happening except getting a few ticks and stickers all over my pants and I walk over this one area and the rods magically swing in on each other??? I was dumbfounded. I walked back and forth, up and down, cross-wise all the while changing the rod angles, changing the grasp pressure, doing everything yer not suppose to do and each time over that same area the rods still “pull”. JB is off somewhere else, so now is the time for a science project…….can he find the same spot? I tracked him down and asked him to go over and see what this hillside looks like. Of course I didn’t tell him my spot, and yup, he found it. all my preconceived notions were dashed.

so I had the well driller come out, his tools of choice were two stainless steel rods (same geometry as what ryan described) customized with plastic hand grasps on the short ends, and on the long ends, plastic tube extensions filled with water. Darned if he didn’t find the same spot. That spot ended up giving 10 gpm at 180 feet which is really good for my area.

so george, for better or worse, i am a pedigreed geologist. born and bred by arguably one of the best geologists the world has ever seen. When I told my dad about this his reaction was ..ha…my geology degrees should be stripped from me.

I will admit, I still am skeptical and have a hard time rationalizing the science of it. Is it some form of induction (moving water through a fracture or pipe causes an electrical or magnetic field)??

As a little side note, my old well (that came with the place on purchase) was drilled next to the house on the orders of the previous owner so to be “convenient” for piping and electrical. There were no indications from “witchin” that this was a good spot. The well is 550 feet deep and produces 1.5 gpm……not completely dry, but I can tell you plenty a dry hole have been drilled in this area. Many parcels do not have any water at all.

So, after my first “witchin” experience for my new well, I have used witchin, and seen witchin used for locating underground utilities, and new well sites in my neighborhood. One fella up on the ridge above me got 60 gpm on a spot JB picked for him, an unheard of production for this area.

From my experiences, the best application appears to be bedrock areas where groundwater is controlled by fractures, or trying to detect trends in metallic underground pipes, or plastic pipes conveying water. From what I’ve seen, there has to be some form of moving water or object of metallic composition involved. I think the technique is probably useless down in the valley over thick flat lying sediments.

So yeah George, now that I want a new well, I did the process again. It’s a 6.7 acre parcel on which I picked a spot. my neighbor looked at it, and he found the same spot. I had the well driller come out on Wednesday ………….he found the same spot……..my comment about it matching the geology is only because this spot is in the vicinity (not exactly on but close to) where two drainages converge. from a purely geological standpoint, i would have positioned the well right at the convergence, and would have been approximately 80 feet from the "witched" spot, and by doing this might have a 500 foot dry hole....and i am not gonna pay $15/ft to test this theory, though…… strangely……….. i will pay $15/ft to have him drill the "witched" spot.......you may take my degrees away now


so anyway fingers crossed, wish me luck,

hope my story didn’t bore you to tears.

Although I believe in witching with wires because it has worked for me and somehow hangs on the edge of almost being logical in my mind. I must be crazy but I just can't believe that it would work with a forked stick.

Very interesting stories, guys.
A couple of years ago, when I was still planning the pond project, I got ahold of the original owner of not only my property, but also owned the surrounding farm property. He moved there as a boy in 1935.
During our enlightening conversation, I quizzed him on the location of any drainage tiles. He gave me verbal, generic locations...then told me to witch 'em. He described the same pc of copper wire. So I made a set and went out and tried it. I was disappointed with the lack of any results. I tried to balance the rods so they would not move, like my fingers were knife edges on a triple beam scale. I couldn't get the wires to stay straight and still as I moved. I didn't want to hold them any tighter, figuring that this unknown force that would draw them together would be too weak to rotate the vertical wire portion in my hands. Anyway, they kept moving left and right, mostly based on the way I cocked my wrists. I gave up after about 20 minutes. Besides, I was witching for a drain tile that, at that particular time, would not have had water in it. Based on what Dave noted, maybe I would not have found it anyway...?
So, PB witchers...tell me. Can you grip the wires snugly enough to stabilize them from rolling left and right (basically pointed straight away), and still expect the force from below to move them together?

Your field tiles must be (either) ceramic (or plastic), Brettski. Metal wires only work to find water in metal pipes or water with lots of iron in it.

My In-Laws witch with No.9 steel wire bent in the elongated "L" pattern. My FIL witched four spots on my farm, three of which produced water. Drilling a line of fence post holes on the property the same year resulted in about 3 out of 4 filling with water overnight. Evidently you can witch water with an auger on the back of a tractor.

I need to add that to the "tractor uses" thread.

Brettski I've been told only certain people can do it.

On a pond related sidenote when preparing to dig at my site I needed to have a place for my overflow pipe to go. Through my neighbors property to a big ditch was ideal. My neighbor said that it was fine to do so but wouldn't sign an easement. There is a loophole that if there is an existing drainage tile from my property to his that I would then have an implied easement to I went to witchin' to find a tile. I got a strong reading at the South side of my pond and we dug down about 4' and didn't find anything we didn't go any deeper because at the time they were installed they were hand dug. We started digging the pond, planning on an alternate place for the overflow. We got about 7' down on the South side of the pond and found an old 4" clay tile, about 30' directly in line of the spot I witched. My helper couldn't believe it was so deep figuring it was originally put in a low spot that over the many years of farming had just filled in.

Of course I can change channels without touching my TV too!

Ditch Witch, I presume?

I can't. I have conscious awareness that I am tipping the wires; that ruins it for me.

i have no conscious :rolleyes:

actually, in my case on the first well experience, the pull was so strong you had to really grasp hard to keep the wires from pulling. believe me theo, i was thinking about it..changing pressures, angles. with practice b'ski i found that with well balanced rods you can lightly grasp the rods and maintain them in a parallel fashion. part of it is not focusing on the rods but focusing on the geometry of how you walk an area. when the rods swing, then you test the area by walking various traverses at right angles to each other, and hopefully narrow down the trend or spot.

that said, i claim no expertise at this though, and would never assume any responsibility if asked to conduct this ritual for finding someone else's potential well spot. on jobs where utilities could be an issue, i always hire out an independent locating service.

Very interesting story – no tears.

Based on the science, I come down on the side of your dad.

With respect for your experience and others, I have to take the subject seriously – I have absolutely no experience with water wells.

I can accept metal pipelines, copper rods and mineralized water properties, but have difficulty with tree branches and sand and clay aquifers.

If the basis for determining rock and fluid properties could be detected by such primitive methods, it is my opinion that it would have much wider acceptance in geological exploration.

From a case history/academic standpoint I would like to see the other site drilled based on your geologic interpretation?

”so anyway fingers crossed, wish me luck,”

AGREED – GOOD LUCK!!

Bust out your tinfoil hats fellas. What you are talking about is dowsing. I have extensively researched parapsycology studies carried out by the US government and others. Dowsing was studied not for water, but for intelligence purposes in project stargate run by the CIA at stanford research institute. There was an official program for over 20 years which included dowsing and remote viewing. The US first got interested in these types of topics during the cold war as the USSR was heavily vested in these types of issues. I don't want to be kicked out for being crazy so you can do your own research at cia.gov and nsa.gov. I don't think it has anything to do with the metallic composition from what I have come to understand. It's more about quantum physics and being able to percieve information thru untraditional means.

Ah...thanks Keith..now I understand. So the next time someone asks how it works I'll just say, "it's just simple quantum physics, the goverment did studies on it just go look it up." That should satisfy them.

thanks for the good wishes george, i need them. this is a brutally tough area for good water.

come to think of it, i'll gladly accept donations to conduct the experiment

we shall pit the little guy on my left shoulder saying:

"c'mon, follow yer heart, feel the vibes, the rods dont lie.........drill up here on the hillside"

versus the little guy on my right shoulder saying:

"10 years of focused education, two degrees, and a state registration....don't listen to these quacks....use yer head man....drill at the confluence".

There is no "in a nut shell" explanation. Some dowsers use maps and pendulums wich would negate the metalic composition theory.

Here's one way to kind of explain it in a way people can relate to. Ask yourself if you can tell when you are being stared at. When you say yes like everyone does, I would like to ask how? By untraditional means ie quatum physics.

So if its all about metalic and quatum physics, then how come it "DOES" work with a forked stick?

I have had the stick just about strip the bark in my hands trying to hold them back. Don't know how, but it works.

At least I have a better feeling about dowsing than Lysenkoism.

It sounds like you can use magnetic or non-magnetic metals as someone said a dude likes to use stainless steel for his witching rods where others like coat hangers (which I think are carbon steel?)

Wouldn't very basic logic then rule out magnetism, not to mention using a wooden stick?

Some of this, in my mind, has to relate to how much of our brains we really use.

In theory, your subconcious(not magnetics)moves the sticks when it has obtained the information you desire(walk over the spot). I have never personally seen or used dowsing but have read about it. I have seen similar abilities used acurately so I would tend to believe that some people do have the gift. I would not believe that anyone is 100% accurate at anything like this but I would believe they could be right beyond chance and common geological knowledge. If I used it at all I would use it cooberate my personal feelings or a geologists findings. If everyone says the same thing, dig.

I can't do it and have been trying for years. I think I have too many logical thought processes and only believe in statistics, research and the recuperative powers of beer and tequila. I don't believe in spooks, Nessie, Chupacabaras, birds stocking ponds or Louis Lamore's old gods. However, I just finished reading a book about Bigfoot and do believe they exist.

Here's my story. When I got married 15 years ago(yesterday was my anniversary), my bride thought we ought to have a place to stay on the land. She nixed my tent idea. I got "the look". I bought a series of camping trailers and finally a mobile home. I hauled 50 gallon water barrels from Fort Worth and hooked up a pretty ingenious pumping system into the house. She wanted a well. I called a well driller and he poked two 500 ft. holes into the ground with no results. I wrote a sizeable check and he left. Mama ain't happy.

I started researching dowsing and figured what the heck. I bent some brass rods and started walking. Nada. Then I noticed a slight twitch on ONE of the rods. I retried that spot and nothing happened. So, I finally located a dowser. He came and used a forked willow limb. He walked over the area where I felt the twitch and the limb pointed down. I tried with the stick and nothing happened. He gave me the "city boy look". Then a local cowboy came by and tried it. He also had the "gift". He went over one place and yelled "look at this". He was straining to hold the limb upright and couldn't. Like Chris, the bark was breaking under the strain. I took the stick and, again, nothing. I'm still secretly trying, with no results, in that spot. I drilled in the area where I had originally felt one of the wires cross and hit water. Not much, but with a 2,500 gallon holding tank, Mama can take her 20 minute morning showers.

For me, it doesn't work. For others, it dang sure does.

Guv, I'm more curious about the book you read on Sasquatch.

What was the title? And please don't say it was one of the "Dora, the Explorer" series.

Dave, I know these two ponds, one below the other's dam, seperated by 10 feet. Would it not be plausibe that a bird might catch a fish and acidentally drop it on the other side of the damn? Would this not be a bird stocking a pond? Or do you just mean by eggs on its legs? In this scenario that would be plausible as well so what would be the required distance for the fish eggs not to survive on the birds legs?

PS, We should have Lusk call Myth Busters, FOR REAL!!!