Originally posted by Theo Gallus:
Evidently you can witch water with an auger on the back of a tractor.
I need to add that to the "tractor uses" thread.
There is an old joke where I come from. Somebody would proudly display a big fish, and right on que, somebody else would ask "where'd you catch that big fish?" The proud fish catcher would answer "right in the mouth." Somebody always took that old joke "hook line and sinker!"
I guess you guys got me -- hook, line, and sinker.
It is darn hot. Too hot to do much of anything useful, so I went down to the barn and made a pair of witchin' rods out of some #8 copper wire. Five-inch handles, with 24 inches of wild witchin! rod!
I've watched people "witch" since the early 1950s. I've tried it with willow, with sassafras, with steel rods, and with copper rods. Nothing ever happens when I use wish-bone shaped branches of willow or sassafras. But, with steel or copper, I can certainly get them to swivel. But, it's usually because one of my feet is in a depression.
As I got into my teens in Northern Wisconsin and Northern Minnesota, I came to realize that I lived in an area with a very high water table. The old timers always witched before they sunk a well. Many times I helped sink "sand points" into the ground for these wells. When we hit the level of Lake Superior, or the inland lake we were closest too, that was the level of the water in our new well.
Anyway, as a diversion in tonight's heat, I thought I'd try witchin' at least one more time.
My well is about 600 feet from the house. I thought I'd try to see if I could "witch" the water line from the well to the house. It is buried about 3-4 feet down. No such luck.
I know where the line leads from the house to my septic tank. I know where my septic tank and distribution box are located. During this part of the summer, it is easy to tell where the drain field lines are, as they are the only place where the grass is green. I tried to locate the whole system with the rods. Nothing doing.
I have a 50,000 volt powerline running through my property. It goes right over my pond. The field is strong enough to allow me to draw sparks from the lower eyes of my 16 foot jigging rod and from those on my fly rod. If I walk out there with a 4-foot fluorescent bulb, or one of the new high efficiency bulbs, it will light all by itself. As far as the witchin' rods -- nothin doing under the power lines either.
(This is what I see from my pond dock as I look toward
1600 MILLION WATT Mt. Storm, WV 
As a not-so-young electronics engineer, various silly people have sought my advice in crazy areas like wave theory and electro-magnetic field propagation. I think I know a little about the subject, but can't explain witchin'.
But, I don't discount it. I don't discount ESP or UFOs either.
As much as I'd like to believe in witchin' -- I think Theo's auger has as good a chance of finding water as my copper rods.
Next time I put the post hole digger on the tractor, I'm wearing my tinfoil hat. Maybe I'll find a UFO with an eternal water supply for my pond!
Good witchin'
Ken G.
