What's hiking like in MS?

[Phil P]

On the surface, it looks like Mississippi wouldn't have many options to get out and go wander around the woods from a public land or marked trail perspective, but drilling in, there is a TON of forest land in MS that's in tact and not full of houses or farms all over. The issue I always ran into in Atlanta is it was so sliced up by development for a long ways that there wasn't any big intact pieces of land unless it was a park. MS is different though. By hiking, I'm not necessarily talking about peak climbing or backpacking, more just like time out in the woods.

Are people allowed to go wander around in the privately owned timbered areas of MS that are a good ways away from peoples house, would anybody yell at you for walking down the forest access road? Or is it more of like a BLM type of experience where the land is being used for production in some fashion, and you can go around in there as you'd like, though something like camping would be off limits.

I'm sure people go hunt in these, but outside of hunting season, are people out and about wandering in the woods? Do most people go to the national forest if they want to go outside or do they go to the local areas nearby?