Maybe...
Maybe not...
I have never thought of or considered myself to be good.
But there have been many different different jobs for just as many different customers through out the years where I thought to myself as being real lucky.
Sometimes. it's a feeling i'll get in my gut that makes me focus in on the way the bucket reacts to my commands.
Or noticing a slight difference in the walls of the trench.
Operators seldom look outside their immediate work area.
I might notice a valve can across the street, a meter box, concrete vault, utility pole, fire hydrant or something that could line up with or tie into something on the other side of a street or lot.
I'll find myself somehow being able to tune out everything other than the way the excavator sounds, how the bucket moves on the stick and how the bucket moves thru the dirt.
Then, as you witnessed, I'll back out of it and tell someone that there IS something there.
I felt it.
I'd say that 75% of the time I was right.
Either the locater was off or the utility was not marked.
We just dig a little by hand and "Bingo" there it is.
Honestly....
I don't know how I can see or feel an unmarked utility with a 245?
Lots of luck?
Being able to focus?
Maybe a little of both...