I've handled leases for several private landowners and have leased or been in clubs that lease for a long time. Rayonier had about 300 acres I leased for several years till they sold the property and I never had a bit of negative dealings with them. I think I was probably lucky that the forester our of Andalusia in charge of the leases in that area had plenty of common sense, liked to hunt and was a dang good guy. They had the charge per acre for plots at that time and he was VERY lenient on the estimate. It relates to the amount of value an acre of land could produce in timber growth per year for the company.
The economy is bad and most of the clubs I know are having a hard time getting enough members to pay their lease without pouring too many hunters per acre on the tracts. A LOT of property will not be leased this year. I have always changed $6.00 per acre plus the insurance. When the owners would say something about going up on the price, I would tell them that they need to handle the leases. I didn't have any of them that wanted to mess with them and I don't have any problem leasing the properties.