Working in or near the water is not always the easiest place to detect with a VLF, a compromise on stability over depth is usually the state of play, hence you may struggle to pick up on many deeper targets (more for the multi frequency/PI brigade). As you mentioned, erosion or cuts in the beach are your best bet, or wait till the beach has eroded to steep angle to pick out any possible coin lines.
Anywhere where I see rocks starting to protrude through the sand (gutters, steeply cut beach), they are obvious traps for coins, silver and gold. Even if you see a horizon of larger pebbles/stones say at the bottom of the beach, they can also hold a few good finds.
Checkout the areas under jetties, aside from the obvious sinkers, over the years many other items may have dropped through the cracks or over the edges.
Try either side of river/creel outfalls, they can significantly slow down the movement of sand along a beach, and hence let targets drop out and even concentrate in particular areas.
You may have to set your ground balance manually for the wet sand if the "pumping method" doesn't GB properly, also be prepared to drop the sensitivity way back to get the detector to run stable enough without a ton of falsing. Run the coil an inch or two off the wet surface, this will also help to prevent falsing - dig only repeatable targets that don't jump all over the place. If you dig what you think is a good target, and find the target moves or disappears after excavating a hole, you will probably find it is just falsing off the salt.
Lastly, get a decent sturdy sand scoop, you will never know how you managed without one after giving them a go.