Great question with a great answer! So when the well driller came out to check out the site, I told him approximately where I wanted to well. Proper setback from the road, distance from the house, etc.
Now this guy has been drilling wells for 20+ years and is pretty much a 2 man operation. Anyway, we're walking through the woods, and he just grabs a branch off some random sapling, and snaps it into a Y resembling shape. He then peels back the bark back into "handles" at the tips of the Y that he will be holding, in such a way that the bark forms a spring suspension of sorts to the rest of the stick, if you will.
He then walks very deliberately in straight lines towards the location I suggested and past them. Making passes about 60 degrees apart, so about 6 "marches" total. To my amazement, I could see the stick that he held very loosely in his hands in the bark "suspensions" clearly turn down towards the ground with varying intensity as he made his approaches. And no, his hands did not at all move with the stick. So after a few minutes, he determined the best spot as well as a 2nd and 3rd less favorite spot. They were all within 10 feet of each other. We went with his #1 spot.
Being a big time skeptic of everything that cannot be scientifically proved, I jokingly asked him if dowsing really worked. He said that, over the last 20 years, having done about 800 wells, he had only drilled 2 or 3 dry ones. Sure, a few only flowed 3-4 gallons and he had to go down past 400ft, but still , that is a pretty impressive record, and this well was right up there. I mean you could hear the water flowing!
Interestingly, the neighbor's lot is now on it's 2nd well. The first one dried up back in 2002 (I think that was the year) during the big drought we had. He had a new well dug, and they went to 400 ft before he got 3 gallons. Someone else drilled that well.
Believe it or not.... I wish I had video taped it. It was so obvious how the stick would point down as he walked in his straight lines, and not his hands....
