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.