Slight thread drift on the subject of re-finding things under unlikely circumstances: When I was a kid (1980 or so), I was fishing from the beach at Cape May NJ with my dad. On one of his casts, his line broke, and he lost his lure (It was a Hopkins; it was his favorite for surf-casting, and it was the only one of that type he owned). He'd forgotten to bring another lure with him, so he walked back up to the house, got a different lure, and came back. On his very next cast, when he reeled his line in, his Hopkins was caught on the hook of the new lure.
True story. He still has that Hopkins lure to this day.
-BP