One other thing.....if you initiate the leasing, he may get the idea of taking bids for leasing in the future.
Thats kind of what I'm worried about. The wheels may start turning.
Thanks for the opinions and advice everyone. The landowner isn't strapped for cash from what I can tell. He's a retired physicist and doing pretty well. His house is a few blocks away from the land that he owns. I'm not even sure why he owns it to be honest with you. I've never seen him past his 2 acre backyard. Probably to avoid houses from popping up in the neighborhood if he sold it .
The other thing I'd be worried about would be the 2 guys that hunt the handful of shotgun days that they are out there. Right now they do their thing and we do ours. Not the greatest relationship in the world between us and them. They may have a fit about the whole thing too and add complication to it. I'm just afraid that if that happens then the landowner may just say to heck with all of ya which I wouldn't blame him really. Why would he want to be bothered with all that? Tough situation I guess.