Sometimes in really saturated conditions, I loose depth almost like the over saturation reflects some signal, same thing happens right when the ground thaws...even though the ground is pretty wet, the tiny ice crystals seem to kill my depth for about the first week after thaw. Some soils containing marine clays can get so dense when wet...I am sure that certain densities of soil probably don't allow much depth penetration and may even reflect signals back. What I always found to help when faced with over-saturation was to try a smaller coil. Some soils I would get awesome depth when damp or wet...but to much water and the depth just dropped off horribly. In that situation a smaller coil nearly always improved my depth. Same as in very mineralised soils... a large coil seemed to pick up too much of the mineralisation..overloading the machine to the point it could not get depth. Case and point: in Galveston a few years back, in the wet sand shallow surf, I got nearly twice the accurate depth from my SE using the old 10 inch slimline coil than my 15 inch WOT and still better depth than my Sun Ray 12. Same day, 150 feet away, in the dry dunes, my Slimline couldn't touch the depth of the WOT. The only thing that changed was moisture content and salt. As you add more conductivity to the soil through mineralisation and/or also moisture content, you can get to a point where the shallow signal of the soil itself is so great that the deeper signal becomes impossible to pick up. It's hard to hear the clock tick if the tv's too loud.
A point further: after thaw...the top layer of the soil is very saturated and the soil below is still somewhat frozen or contains ice...That ice layer prevents the water from perking down deeper...so now you have a very top layer that is extremely saturated and a lower layer that isn't, that is not a situation conductive to extreme depth. Best situation would be when the top 7 inches of soil are damp and the deeper layers are wetter...now you will attain the best depth possible. Sometimes, in clay type soils, 3 or 4 days after the storms END, produce incredible depths both compared to dry periods or same day rains because it takes that long for the water to perk to the depth that you need it to. In a sandy loam type soil, same day rains may be the best situation. I noticed this hunting in farm fields where certain parts of the field were literally flooded and other adjacent parts where just wet or damp. My deepest finds came from the areas where when I dug a target and found water in the bottom of my hole at the ten to twelve inch deep mark, I could easily get 12 inch hits or better. In the areas flooded, I could only get about 8 inches, sometimes less.
Just a few things to consider are:
mineralisation...salt and iron content of the soil..presence of hematite or magnetite
moisture content
density of the soil and types...sandy loam, marine clays, plowed (air entrenched), organic loose, hard pack shale etc
How quickly or slowly those different soils perk water
presence of ice in layers or crystal form
and WHEN was the last rain
One last possible point is if there was lightning during the rains..after the lightning the ground maybe less or more electrically charged which may interfere as well
I need to go detecting, can you tell there is a foot of snow on the ground here
Sorry for the over kill Julien
