Upon leaving my previous hunt, I was filled with excitement to meet up with both Marlon and his son Wyatt. By this point, I had hunted with Marlon before, though only in New Zealand, which was new for both of us. But this hunt was different. This was his home court: chasing mule deer with a bow in the high alpine. It would be a lie to say I didn’t have expectations or preconceived notions about what was to come. More than the hunt, I was just excited to hang out and mess around with the two of them. No matter what happened, it was going to be a good time.
For those of you who don’t know, Marlon on the mountain is about 80% messing around and 20% absolute dialed-in killer. This lethal combination makes for an extremely fun hunt. When it’s go time, it’s go time. But until then, it’s pure fun. It’s a grind, for sure, there’s no doubt about that, but fun. The suck sucks a little less. Above all else, this is why I was excited for the hunt. Not to mention learning a thing or two from a master at his craft.
Driving to the hunt, the pressure was off my shoulders. There’s something special, but different, about “hunting” on someone else’s tag. No bow to pack, no real decisions to make, no pressure. Everything hunting is, without the need to fill a tag. Would I rather have a tag in my pocket? Yes. But this holds its own kind of magic. If you truly love hunting, you’ll understand what I mean. Just being in the mountains, chasing critters around for a friend, is more than enough to get you excited. Add a promising unit into the mix, and you’re off to the races.
"More than the hunt, I was just excited to hang out and mess around with the two of them"
The hunt started off slow. It looked perfect, everything a deer could want or need, but it was devoid of life. We spent a day or two putting in the miles, covering massive amounts of epic deer country to no avail, so we switched it up. Changed ranges and relocated.
On the first morning in new country, just as day was breaking, we drove into two bucks. One, Marlon said, was a beautiful typical 190” buck, the biggest buck I had ever seen in person, and something I would’ve been damn proud of. But not for Marlon, not in this country. Marlon was after something special. He was after 200, and he believed somewhere in this country he could find it. This level of hunting I had heard of but never witnessed myself.
Not too much later into the day, I noticed, with the naked eye, a buck on the ridge about 350 yards away. When I threw up my glass, I saw it was another great buck. I couldn’t even throw out a score in that moment, but he had a mega frame and was as typical as they come—beautiful symmetry, and HEAVY. Within seconds, Wyatt was on the bucks with the 85mm scope. “There’s an absolute giant below him,” Wyatt blurted out. And there he was: a true giant. At first glance I couldn’t tell what he was, but he definitely wasn’t typical, an extra point here, an extra there. He was big. Marlon, with his experience, knew it the second he laid eyes on him.
"That’s a 200, that’s the one."
Marlon Holden
We sat on the bucks for about an hour, watching… hoping they would bed down in a good spot. But, as deer do, they didn’t read the script and fed around the corner and out of sight. As frustrating as it was, the hunt wasn’t blown. The bucks were still in country; they had just relocated to a different facing slope, the one side where it was extremely hard to find a good vantage point. At that point, our only option was to wrap a couple miles around through some brutal country and get to a vantage where we could get eyes on the slope they were on. With all the side-by-side traffic we found in this zone driving in that morning, Marlon’s instincts told him our best chance of getting this buck killed was that day, before the pressure had a chance of pushing these bucks out for good.
A few hours later, we were in position. Glassing this new slope wasn’t easy. It wasn’t thick, but from our only available vantage point, the shade lay completely on the opposite side of the trees. Seeing these bucks bedded from the only vantage available was nearly impossible. We’d have to catch these bucks on the move to get eyes on them.
An hour in and nothing. No movement. No life. At this point, we started to wonder how best to use our time. Do we stay and continue to glass, hoping they would get out of their beds and move? Or move to a different zone for an evening glass where we knew other bucks took refuge?
Not long after we became restless, I glassed up a buck that had moved from cover. Wyatt immediately confirmed this was the bachelor group we’d first seen that morning. We were in the game. We found them.
We watched them for a bit, and when we had an idea of exactly where they would bed, Marlon took off. He had some major ground to cover, and it amazed both Wyatt and me how quickly he was in position. We watched him through the glass for a bit, and then suddenly he disappeared. I still don’t understand how it happened. There one second, gone the next. Like he had never been there at all.
At this point, all we could do was keep a keen eye on the bucks. About thirty minutes later, while Wyatt and I were both in the glass, the bucks jumped out of their beds on full alert. The smaller buck peeled off to the right while our target buck dipped left. While I initially thought they had been bumped, that feeling was soon trumped. Not ten yards into his run, the big buck started his tumble. End over end until he came to a stop not twenty yards below. What had just happened? Baffled. Speechless. In wonder.
What had we missed up until this point? Thirty minutes of lost visual led to the quick, merciful kill of this buck. It wasn’t until about thirty seconds later that I was able to pick Marlon up in the glass, standing victorious at what I thought was roughly sixty to seventy yards away. Bow over his head. An image forever etched in my memory. Among the many things that made this moment so special were the whoops and hollers we exchanged, piercing the silence of the canyon separating us. We had done it. We arrived, we executed, we got it done. Something out of SEAL Team Six.
About an hour and a half later, when Wyatt and I finally arrived at the scene, I couldn’t believe what was waiting. It’s one thing to glass up a giant and another thing entirely to get your hands on one. Again, a sight I will not soon forget.
"It’s one thing to glass up a giant and another thing entirely to get your hands on one"
Not only was this Marlon’s biggest buck to date, but the first 200+ mule deer on his twenty-year quest. Having his son Wyatt there with him was an extremely special moment, and I was immensely grateful to have been part of it.
On top of that, a good friend of Gray Light happened to be in the area and joined us the following day to celebrate. Call it what you want, but I don’t believe in coincidences to this degree. Whatever forces were at play that day led all of us to that moment where magic and reality intermingle to create something truly special. A day none of us will ever forget. This is why we do it and what makes all the suffering that comes with it worth it. It’s what makes the brotherhood of bowhunting special.
For us at Gray Light, our mountain dreams are alive and well. To continue what has been an amazing start to the 2026 season, we wish all of you following along nothing but epic times ahead. See you in the gray light where the big bucks and bulls grow big.
