There's a ton of public land to hunt around 77/78. The entire north end of 77 is wilderness as is the eastern end of 78.
771 has alot of tribal land in it. There's a good bit of tribal land sprinkled through 77 but a decent map will show you where it is. There's a lot of little pockets here and there that can get you in trouble but there's a ton of national forest and BLM land. We used to hunt there and everyone always prayed for snow. One year we got alot of snow and it seems like most of the deer were down out of 77 into 771 (and there's a lot of private and Indian land down there).
I used to see alot of deer when I hunted there. I saw few big deer but like anywhere else, I'm sure there's a few around.
"There is an island of opportunity in the middle of every difficulty. Miss that, though, and you're pretty much screwed..."