Now and then someone may attempt to explain beach erosion but the most common answer is "after a storm". The never ending problem that is the greatest annoyance in the life of the beach hunter goes unanswered. I feel inadequate for the task but I am beginning to understand some of the forces that change the beach and I will share it with you.
There are important key times in the yearly lifecycle of the beach and they occur when no one is recognizing what it happening. You know by now if you have followed my writings about the minus(low) tides that occur sporadically during the year and pull the water far out to expose the bottom of the swimming areas. These are vital so that you can detect it much faster than dragging your coil through the deep water. There is a center axis of these tidal movements and when it is happening you see no more minus tides for a long time and the middle point of this tidal swing causes great change in the beach. I could not believe my eyes when I saw it happen and it seemed to occur almost overnight.
Since I have noticed a subtle shift in the timing of the low tides in the cycle I will call these middle point times the "Spring shift" and the "Fall shift". I have NEVER heard anything or read anything about beach erosion or building that has ever suggested the shifts and subsequent effects. All these concepts are original with this author and right or wrong represent more information on the subject than you will find anywhere else.
I had noticed the strange behavior at the time of the Spring shift as the beaches are almost completely awash in choppy water and reach well over most of the beach. The Fall shift seemed to work just opposite! It occurred at the time of the year when our beach is high with a summer accumulation of deep sand and at that time of year the bottom of the swimming areas resemble the floor of a drive in theater(if you can remember) or there are troughs maybe 30-40 foot wide with sand bars about the same and they progressively repeat and grow deeper as you go out in the water. The gold that has been lost by the summer crowd is lying mostly in these troughs under a few inches of sand.
In only a few days the very deep dry sand on the beach is pulled out in the water and immediately fills the troughs so that the floor of the swimming area is now only a smooth slant that moves steadily down as you walk farther out in the swimming area! You can see that all of the gold has now become unattainable as it rests about 2 1/2 to 3 foot deep in the sand! When I hunt the winter minus tides all I can find is what gold is left on top of the sand bars which may be a foot deep themselves. Clearly hunters that do not use the very best equipment can not hope to find anything that time of year. Now there are a very few items that are dropped after the Fall shift occurs as some places still remain sunny and warm with warm sea water temperatures.
I have found a method for finding the level where I might expect to find the summers treasure by finding the sunglasses that read out like "pulltab" or gold and see how deep they are found. Currently I find them 20 inches deep so you can see that my winter hunt will be poor this year. The sunglasses get covered easily and mark the treasure zone. I have often wished for a road grader to take off a couple of feet of sand so I could hunt!
The Spring shift is the great beach builder and it removes all the sand in the troughs and pushes it back onto the beach for the summer crowd to enjoy. I cannot water hunt this time of year because the surf is often very choppy and dirty(with sand) and the undercurrent is extremely strong to the level that it can just jerk you right off your feet while you are standing in fairly shallow water.
The easy time for water hunters is to follow the beach crowds after the weekends and holidays to quickly scoop up the treasure of the sea before the stingy ol' sea just snaps it's purse shut!
Now don't give up all hope but just understand the more you know about the sea the more you can use your knowledge to see the sun shine on the pretty yellow things again and jerk them from the grasp of the sea. It is a game we play and the sea wins most often.
Before I leave you I want to say that there are exceptions to this cycle and they are your great hope because when they occur(if they occur) you can be quickly satisfied with an abundance of goodies. The conditions that cause these events are the extremes of wind and weather and while we use as an example the hurricane there are more events that will aid your search. Watch the sea buoy report if you can get it or the newspaper for offshore wave heights and look for wave heights of 15 foot and either a in-shore breeze or a wind that blows along the beach from one side or the other and these will strip sand quickly and give you your opportunity.
If you are hooked on the beach like I am then you look hard for the very first indication that some sand has been removed. Not long ago the sand was too high but we had some rough weather and as I drove up to the beach I noticed a very small thing that was different. There seemed to be a very, very shallow area near the water that was scooped out some. Most people would not have even noticed this unless you spend as much time at the beach as I do. My wife went straight to the area and in minutes pulled out a diamond ring with 7 diamonds and a beautiful silver cameo ring and all this in only that small area. In only a day or two later the small area was completely gone and you would never believed that it was there. Only days earlier I had searched that beach and found nothing! Needless to say it takes a trained eye to spot these areas and you need to remember to look first before just marching down the beach swinging your coil.
Heavy rain also has a lot to do with erosion of the beach. I just learned that today. After a heavy rain there are more things to be found as an inch or two may be taken off the beach. I can only assume that a downpour rain blasts the tiny grains of sand loose to float downward to the sea on a sheet of water from the rain. The particles cut even more sand loose as they pass and the channels of water that run faster are heavy with sand that cut deep into the beach. Look for these after a rain even though the entire beach may have some sand removed the channels have cut down several inches to a foot or more in some cases. I am speaking of only the very heavy rains of 2-4 inches per hour and the best is when it rains like that for several hours at a time.
You may rightly ask "does an inch or two make any difference on the beach when I need about 6 feet off the level of the sand?" The answer depends on the activity level of hunters on your beach. My beach has become exceedingly more active all year around(thanks to me probably!) and most people think that it is hunted out. The truth is that every square foot of beach has had a great number of coil passes over it. This morning I found a gold ring that I had detected over no less than 150 times this year and today I pulled it out! You have to understand that the top 12 inches is clean completely as so many people have made multiple passes over it and only when an inch or two is stripped off it might give a BEEP that was too deep before. For those who have the deep sand beaches that are not cut much until the winter storms you may find the coins and jewelry of this years summer after these conditions but if you are only chasing the very old coins then you will have to just watch the weather channel on TV until you get your deep sand cut enough. Although I am sure my beach has them too, my beach has rock groins every 2 or 3 hundred yards down the beach which prevent deep erosion like you would expect along a deepwater ocean. I hunt the beach under all conditions and as long as I know what is happening then I know where to go to find the treasure
When you can comprehend this lifecycle and understand exactly where it is now and what will happen next and why then you can multiply your finds considerably. Spend time expanding your perception and try to see just a little more than you have before. When you develop a your perception like the fictional Sherlock Holmes then you too can improve what most people attribute to luck.
