I hunt Gulf beaches a lot (2-3x/wk for 5-6 hrs) and often in the water. Right now, forget about recent drops because few are going into the water and any older gold isn't reachable except after storms. I hunt the trough at certain times of the month when the wave and tide energies are concentrated on a small section of the beach - like it is this Sunday (Feb 19) and Monday (Feb 20th). Look at the tide charts (NOT Tables) to see what I mean. This is when there is little difference between high and low tides and all the energy restricted to a small section of the beach over a long period of time (9-12 hrs) can create DEEP troughs, that make gold (my main hunting target) reachable.
It seems that everyone, mostly, concentrates on low tide since you can go further out to search on land or in the water. But for hunting gold in the water, it is probably that worse time to hunt (during the Winter, anyways) since the tide and wave action will cover everything in deep sand. An exception is hunting at low tide where the sand has been stripped and the bottom is covered by rocks or clay and where gold is slowed from falling to the middle of the Earth.
Big Scoop has some GREAT videos about this topic and, I'm sure, that this discussion will cause some to wonder. The realization of hunting during high energy times makes sense once you think about it (it was a revelation to me) and works in practice: I found 2 gold rings so far this year working the trough and both times were during high energy periods . Can't wait till Sunday!
