Justin Kamps is 27 years old and lives in Jenison, Michigan. He has been married for 4 ½ years to his wife Teresa, and they have a son Logan who is 3 ½. Justin manages a few plants for

Mitchell Kamps is 29 years old and resides in Hudsonville, Michigan with his wonderful wife Sarah and three children, Erika, Dana, and Levi.  Mitchell is employed at Kamps, Inc were they manufacture wooden pallets, boxes, crates, and color-enhanced mulches. He has been bowhunting for 16 years and enjoys every aspect of the sport. He especially enjoys time in the field with his father and brothers whether that is hunting in MI, IL or out west.  He also enjoys the fun competition they generate in the backyard when practicing for the upcoming season. Time with family draws him in, but the challenge and excitement of bowhunting are what keeps him coming back even after several slow days.

 

2010 Hit List

"Double Brow": This is our third year chasing after this elusive giant. 2 years ago we saw him twice late season in our food plots and found the matched set of his sheds in the spring. 2009 brought high hopes for our #1 hitlist buck. He had a great rack and we know that he was bedded in our 80 acre sanctuary but all of our pictures of him were at night. He broke most of his right side off in early october so we took him off of our hitlist. Even though he was off the hitlist we never did see him last season but did find part of his broken off beam during spring shed hunting. He is back again this yr as a 6+ year old and is once again at the top of our list.

"Beams": This will also be our third year chasing after this brute. We might have to change his name to "cat" because it seems he has nine lives. We have had this buck within 25 yards 4 times in the last two years with no arrows being flung. 2 years ago our father had him twice within range but once he was moving chasing a doe and the second time a branch was in the shooting lane. That same year he surprised Mitchell after he was rattled in and was never able to draw on him. Last year he really put on some inches so we were excited to try and get a crack at him again. Sure enough Mitchell and I had him come in during the rut. We saw him and Mitchell finally was able to draw on him but he was quartering too us and never presented an ethical shot even though he stopped at 35 and 25 yards. Beams does not summer on our property so we don't have any pictures of him yet. He always shows up the end of september so stay tuned.

"Towers": Another one of our cagey veterans. 2 years ago we passed him as a three year old and found his matched sheds for that year. He blew up in 2009 adding another split brow and a ton of mass. We only saw him once last year from about a 100 yards out but could not get him any closer. Once again we found both sides of his sheds this spring. He is back this year looking very similar to last year which means he's a hog and on the hitlist

2009 Hit List

The following words are Justin's.

We have been managing our property for 6 years. Through passing immature bucks and harvesting lots of does the quality has improved dramatically. Last year we saw the most mature bucks we have ever seen and the size is only getting better. Our goal is to harvest deer once they hit 4 years old, or older. This has proved to be difficult yet very rewarding. Often we have to eat our tag, but that is the price we are willing to pay.

"DOUBLE BROW": He showed up on trail cams in early November of 2008. He was a main-frame 10 with split brow tines on both sides. He looked like he had a lot of potential and would be a 170" plus deer in 2009. Mitchell had numerous encounters with him in December eating soybeans in the sub zero temps this past winter, but he never presented a shot. "Double Brow" shed his antlers before Christmas this past winter so we will have to be sure to try and get him early. We found his sheds in February and he scored just over 160". We have caught a few sightings of him this year and he is a giant and at the top of our hit list. He lives in our 80-acre sanctuary so we will hunt the fringes during October and November. If this doesn’t work, we will hit the food plots come December when the weather is nasty.

"BEAMS": "Beams" was named for his long beams. This deer showed up on trail cams early last year. He was on our hit list last year and we came oh so close to getting him. Mitchell had one encounter where he snuck in to 20 yards not realizing he had gotten that close until it was too late.  Mitchell never got a clear shot. Our father also had him right underneath him after shooting light, once again the buck evaded our efforts. He has a huge body and a heavy rack. We haven't seen him on trail cams yet this year, but he is on our hit list nonetheless.

"ELUSIVE EIGHT":  This is a brute of an eight-point that showed up later in the year. We received two trail cam pictures of him but never saw him during daylight hours. We thought for sure we would see him late season in the food plots when the snow was deep. We saw all of our other bucks hitting our corn and beans because it was so cold but this one eluded us.
 

"TOWERS":Towers showed up on our trail cams in late October. At the time we felt he was too young because his rack didn’t look overly heavy. Mitchell had one encounter with him in November and let him go to see if he could gain some mass or width. All our sightings and pictures of Towers have been on one half of our farm. Sure enough, come March we found both sides of his sheds in a secluded little bedding area in the middle of our cornfield. The sheds turned out to be heavier that expected leading us to believe he might already be a mature deer. Either way he is on the hit list this year because we know he is mature now. Our goal is to set a ground blind in his hidey-hole bedding area. We plan to hunt it early season in the mornings hoping to catch him coming back to bed.

Here is a picture of "Towers" from August 5th of this year - 2009.  You can see that "Towers" added a ton of mass and even a little tine length. This buck is going to be a whopper come this fall.  He would be an awesome deer to have hanging right above the television at the end of the season.

"MULEY": We named this deer "Muley" because he reminds us of a mule deer. He has a tremendous spread; we are guessing around 24". We got a few photos of him on a new property we acquired this past year. The trail cam pictures are over-exposed because of the morning sun, but you still get a good idea what he looks like. It looks like his brow tines split to make him a 12 point. He was hanging out with what looks to be a nice 10 point as well, but we are not sure if the ten-pointer is a shooter.

"S-10": S10 – Our first encounter with S10 was in 2006 when he was a nice 10-pt  With his points stacked close together, we decided to call him the "Stacked 10" or "S-10" for short. There was some disagreement between the three of us on the age of this deer. Titus felt he was 3 years old and Mitchell and I felt he was only a 2 year old. Either way, he was too young to shoot so we elected to give him a free pass for the year. He was a very visible deer giving us multiple shot opportunities throughout the year. By early November he broke off one of his points and in late December he broke off a brow tine.

In 2007, we got some early trail cam pictures of him and once again had multiple opportunities to shoot him throughout the season. He was only a 9 point that year, but his tines were taller and he had put on some heft. I had one really neat encounter with him in early November when he walked right underneath my tree, looked up at me and then trotted off into the woods looking for does.  Seeing how Mitchell and I still felt he was a 3 year old, we once again gave him a free pass. After reviewing the footage from that encounter I think I was a little off on his age, his body was huge and probably that of an older deer. As hard as it is to admit I’m wrong, especially to a brother, I will have to agree with his assessment on S-10’s age. Once again by early November "S-10" had broken a couple more tines off so we knew he was a fighter. 
           

This video is from 2007 as we were about to shoot "S-10" until we noticed that he had broken some of his tines off.  You can tell from this video that "S-10" is just a stud of a deer.

Our strategy going into the 2008 season was to be aggressive with calling to try and bring this deer in. We got two trail cam pictures at the end of August so we knew he was still alive and in our area. He added a split brow and was a 6 x 5.  We were confident that he would show up just like before giving us multiple opportunities. Then as big, mature bucks so often do, he disappeared never to be seen or photographed the whole season. We were not sure what happened or if he was still alive. Much to our surprise and relief he has showed up on our trail cameras multiple times this year so hopefully he will show up during the season.

"QUOTATION": Quotation – This is a new buck showing up on our cameras. He is a mainframe ten. We are not sure if he is a shooter or not but thought we would put him on the list for now. He is showing up in one of our three sanctuary bedding areas so we will set up on the fringes hoping he ventures out during shooting hours.

Here is the latest picture of "Quotation".  This was still when he had velvet on but he put on more tine length and looks a little bit bigger than he did in the last picture.

"WEAK 10":  We got a number of trail cam pictures of this buck at the end of August 2008. We felt he was too young and not quite where we wanted him, judging from rack and body size. My first sighting was at the end of October when he was out cruising for does. This was the first nice deer I had seen all year so initially I thought “he looks good” and that he might be a shooter. After further study, however, I recognized who it was and let him go. I saw him one other time on November 5th, chasing a hot doe. This year he should be mature enough and hopefully has improved on his G4’s