Rear Boat Drain Plug - Tampon

Believe me or not, I swear this happened to my friend Mike and me on a cool morning on Union Lake in Michigan.

We launched his boat for the first time that year. Everything was going as planned. When we pulled away from the dock his wife asked, “What’s this threaded plug for?” This is when panic set in. Mike and I argued about which one of us was going to jump into that cold water and install the plug. I won and he jumped in. The boat was taking on water fast and on his first dive to install the plug, he dropped it in 10 feet of water. Now we really have a problem. The bilge pump was not keeping up with the influx of water.

I was looking for something to plug the hole and it came to me to ask his wife if she had any tampons on board. She did. She only had two on board so we had two shots to make this work. I jumped into the water with the tampon in hand. I thought about how tampons expand when they get wet, so I kept it in the applicator until I got it into position to insert it into the hole. The first attempt was a success and it expanded to the point that the bilge pump caught up with no problem.

We headed back to the dock and walked to the hardware store and bought a new plug. It was installed and we were on our way to fishing all by 9:15 a.m. One tampon saved a whole day of fishing. This prompted me to but a box on my boat, if not for a quick boat fix, but just in case Mr. P. blows into town unexpectedly. Better to be prepared than having to cut a boating trip shot to go to a store on a beautiful day.

If I stated it once, I’ve stated it at least five times in this book, keep a supply of tampons and mini pads handy at all times. They don’t take up much trunk space either.

Gun Cleaning: Tampons

Try different sizes and find the ones that are the snuggest in the barrel and buy a box. Yes men, we CAN buy tampons if we’re self-assured males. Keep a couple with your guns just in case, as I did, you forget your gun cleaning kit on a weekend getaway.

We shot skeet all day and that night I wanted to clean my gun…no kit. The only thing in the cabin long enough to go the length of the barrel were my arrows. Now I needed a cleaning pad. I looked through some drawers and found some tampons. I slid the tampon out about 1 inch and applied some solvent. These things really expand quickly and that is why you should only expose about an inch. Now insert it into the barrel holding onto the applicator and push the string side with the arrow. Don’t push it all the way through because you won’t get it back in. Work it back and forth a few times then push string side out, grab the string and discard. Your hands shouldn’t even get solvent on them.

For semi-automatics, same applies but you need to extend the string in order to pull it out the end of the barrel. I use large, heavy days on my 12 gauge Weatherby over/under.