Dousing rods -- myth or do they work??

[mellowyellow]

I f'ed up the spelling.. Dowsing rods



I have ran into so many people who use rods. I have never used them but an older miner gave me a pair. I'm gonna try them next trip. Can't hurt right.. My opinion is move as much dirt as possible but some people are BELIEVERS in the rods.. So i would love to know peoples opinions of this, and if u use them, do u have any tips for me?! Lol. Myth or is it real?!

 

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[billn1956]

When I was much younger and bought my first place.My father had his friend come over and witch me a well.When I had the driller come in he wanted to drill in another location and I told him no right here.Most wells in the area are over 110 feet before water in my area.I told him why I wanted it there and he laughed about dowesing and wanted to know how deep it would be to the water and I told him what I was told 22 feet for the first and 34 feet for the next and to just drill 20 feet past that .He fussed and raised hell and was calling the man a witch.But 2 weeks later he came to find out who the dowser was because he needed him. But the dowser let me try his stick to see if I could do it.Now I was never with out my metal detector a fisher 1260,,I tried his stick and all I found was coins just as if I had a metal detector in my hand..So yes I do belive.

 

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[TerryC]

A friend of mine dowsed a BLM tract and told me that there is a BILLION in gold there. BUT it is down at least 800 ft in solid rock. DUH! Worth billion(s)... millions to retrieve.... sounds worth the effort. But then why hasn't he started digging... and why is he telling me instead of filing for the claim? Hmmm. Maybe there is a hint of doubt. TTC

 

[wingmaster]

I just don't see how you could everything from water to gold, with that kind of thinking you could find the location of where the last person that came through the property took a leak but how is one to know what your locating. If it indeed does work it would have nothing to do with the dousing rods and its just your minds ability to locate what you have in mind, so if you can do this I would lose the rods and go with my gut feeling.

 

[Desertman50]

I encountered an old guy while prospecting who was dowsing and asked him flat out, what's your success rate? He replied "about 2/3 of the time" or about 66% of the time. After reflecting back on all my prospecting adventures and polling others I knew who prospected, we all came up with around the same success rate without dowsing.

I then asked the old douser guy if he would mind testing his technique in an area I was digging. He agreed and pointed out 3 potential spots that he believed gold would be present, regardless of size or quantity. Guess what, he was right 2 of 3 predictions. So I concluded, based on my non-dowsing prospecting success rate, that there is no clear advantage to dowsing.

I f'ed up the spelling.. Dowsing rods



I have ran into so many people who use rods. I have never used them but an older miner gave me a pair. I'm gonna try them next trip. Can't hurt right.. My opinion is move as much dirt as possible but some people are BELIEVERS in the rods.. So i would love to know peoples opinions of this, and if u use them, do u have any tips for me?! Lol. Myth or is it real?!

 

[bedrock bubba]

I encountered an old guy while prospecting who was dowsing and asked him flat out, what's your success rate? He replied "about 2/3 of the time" or about 66% of the time. After reflecting back on all my prospecting adventures and polling others I knew who prospected, we all came up with around the same success rate without dowsing.

I then asked the old douser guy if he would mind testing his technique in an area I was digging. He agreed and pointed out 3 potential spots that he believed gold would be present, regardless of size or quantity. Guess what, he was right 2 of 3 predictions. So I concluded, based on my non-dowsing prospecting success rate, that there is no clear advantage to dowsing.

But you are drawing a conclusion based upon one dowser. And you do not know the scope of his abilities. Success rate 2/3. Of what? Finding fly poop, or nuggets. What did you find? How do you define this?

There are many dowsers who claim to find gold, but in actuality, they are just picking up random signals of who knows what? Even hot rocks can give off a signal, and many other things if you are not exclusively focused for gold. I often pick up weak, random twitches of the rods on placer river areas, as the flood gold can be spread all over, and not concentrated in one spot. This is quite common. One needs to be able to discriminate between serious, strong twitches and weak flood gold signals. That takes experience.

Learning proper technique is very important. And most beginner dowsers do not employ proper technique. I was taught by one of the best dowsers in the area, and my girlfriend back in '82 was quite gifted. The degree of ability varies enormously with dowswers, and its best to base your judgements upon the truly good ones.