During our 2020 eastern Oregon elk hunt, I was introduced to a couple of hand made long bows by my hunting partner, Tim. He lives near John Strunk and has been stump shooting with him several times and really gotten the traditional bug.

He's passed the bug on to me and I bought one of the bows. He had two with him, but one in particular "spoke to me". I shot both of them many times during the trip and the blonde bamboo bow was a constant favorite.
Long story short, I bought it off of him and am starting my own journey back to my roots of traditionalist.

I bought a tab and will explore using it - may look for a high quality glove as well.
Going to play with the carbon arrows, Tim gave me with it - and a couple of bamboo shafts as well. Then team up with a local traditional expert to finalize on arrows - materials, spine and weight.

I shot recurve exclusively back in the 60's, before getting busy with life and moving on to compounds and rifles. I have a very few blacktails to my recurve credit. I don't see me using the new bow for deer, but turkeys will most likely get hassled lot!.

A few pics of the bow and myself shooting it in elk camp.

The " Bamboo Spirit Too" 68", 47# @ 28". Hand made by John Strunk, of Tillamook, OR.


Nothing is safe now!


Hey! Where'd that one go ?


First two on left were Tim's... 2nd from left is the bow I bought.

Very cool - I started building longbows back around 1990 and started out with rawhide backed Yew selfbows. I was mentored by the St. Charles family and built my early bows similar to what Glenn St. Charles made back in the day. I do have a pair of Yew billets in the shop for another project which will be a more traditional English style longbow with horn nocks similar to what Mr. Struck builds. Thanks for sharing!

Carbon arrows from a self bow? Blasphemy! Get yourself some custom woodies for that work of art and do it some justice.

Iv know John &Pat Strunk since the 90s, Just Great folks! Still have one of John's bows can't shoot it anymore tho. I took several deer with it! You should see if he's still doing now making. Class, I took one how I met him, and the late Larry Ofisher, from trad. Bow hunter mag.

Wood? go all all the way with cane shafts.

I don’t know if John is still offering classes or not. He’s a good five hour drive away, so I won’t be dropping by anytime soon.

I have a couple of bamboo shaft arrows that came with the bow. I was surprised at how strong they are.

That looks really nice.

Very cool bow, looking at it makes me want to start shooting my longbow again.

Cool, except for the carbon. Spent a long weekend at John's home/shop building a vine maple version several years back. Take it as a back for my 70's era Bear recurve. With a shop teacher career, that guy knows more fabrication tricks than McDonalds has hamburgers. Would like to build a few more, but we're weak on good wood out here in eastern Oregon's desert.

I do have some bamboo that's been drying in my garage for about 15 years though.

I'm jealous, Allen. Nice bow!

I've read Strunk's chapters in the Bowyer's Bible many times over the years. I think it's pretty cool to own a bow like that, by someone who knows what they are doing.

Like you, the traditional and primitive aspects of archery are appealing to me. I've made selfbows from hickory staves and red oak boards, then went to a glass recurve, and then a compound. The past couple years I've been thinking about going back to a stick bow again.

Anyway, congrats on that bow.

Jason