High and dry

Local beach and shallow water hunters tend to have short memories, it is sometimes all about the moment. 
The more you get into beach and shallow water metal detecting, the more you follow the most recent beach weather and run the risk of box hunting. 
Its easy to do, the surf may be too high for water hunting and local water hunters either sit at home or hit the wet sand.  
When the surf dies down, local water hunters rush back into the water, but I do the opposite.
Rough surf equals good wet sand and high tide line jewelry hunting for several days. 
You never know how much jewelry was pushed up onto the beach during the period of rough surf, you also never know where it was deposited. 
A calm ocean is just too an attractive prospect to die hard local water hunters, which takes a lot of the competition out of the running for beach finds. 
Although you never know what your water hunting prospects are going to be after a few days of rough surf, a patient beach hunter can pick up jewelry on the lower beach many days after the surf has died down. 
The water hunters who say "It is all in the water" obviously have not seen the inside of my wife's jewelry box full of lower beach found gold jewelry.

The same applies to older areas or less metal detected beaches where full moon high tides hit the back of beaches.
Old silver coins and jewelry may be discovered almost anywhere on the beach, and sometimes many days, weeks or months after they were deposited there. 
Try not to discount a perfectly productive area of the beach all together, just because another area is suddenly more attractive.