I take it back.

In a column in June I wrote, “I believe that the folks who run the Maryland Inland Fisheries Division are trying to become better communicators...”

That’s what I take back. Not only are those folks not becoming better communicators, they have lapsed into what could be considered a surreptitious way of setting regulations, a practice that prevailed during the early 1990s and which at least one top fisheries administrator swore would never happen again.

This is going to take some explaining. Bear with me.

In the early 1990s, the agency would conduct its annual springtime public information meetings about new regulations being considered for the next calendar year. Then, when regulations were published the following year there would be some that had not been mentioned at those public meetings.

For example, a special trout catch-and-return stretch of the North Branch of the Potomac River from Blue Hole to Piney Swamp Run was established in this manner.

For example, a special trout catch-and-return section for that same river from Barnum upstream for three-quarters of a mile was established in this manner.

Such shenanigans make one wonder if the agency did not actually intend to avoid public scrutiny by having someone bring up a new idea outside the public magnifying glass. DNR Secretary John Griffin assures me that such a furtive approach did not take place.

The trout droppings really hit the fan in January 1995 when average Joe angler picked up the new regulation booklet and discovered that he could no longer keep trout from a popular portion of the upper Savage River or use bait to fish for them.

Jim Minogue, who runs BJ’s Convenience Store along the upper Savage River was extremely concerned, not only about the angling pleasures of the public, but about his business, where many of that same fishing public bought soda pop, worms and fishing licenses.

A flurry of phone calls ensued, resulting in the intervention by elected state officials. What also resulted was a trip by Bob Lunsford, then head of the inland fishery effort, to Minogue’s living room where he met with and was verbally attacked by angry anglers the way a brook trout attacks a garden worm in a Savage River tributary.

The meeting made an impression on me. I was there. The meeting made a lasting impression on Lunsford as well.

Very quickly the regulations were rescinded and fishermen were once again allowed to keep trout and use bait to fish for them.

Lunsford vowed then and every year afterwards that regulations would never again be changed in that manner.

Any new idea brought before the fishery agency during the spring meeting would have to wait until the spring meeting a year later to be on the table.

That approach, of course, makes sure the public can have a say.

To my knowledge and to Lunsford’s credit, regulations were never again enacted in a less-than-fully-public manner.

Until this year, that is.

But Lunsford is gone from the fishery job. Has been for a couple years or so.

Here is what happened this time around. Anglers who read page 16 of the 2010 Maryland Fishing Guide learn that the portion of Wills Creek from the Locust Grove Bridge downstream to the Army Corps of Engineers flood control project is now included in the put-and-take regulations. That means anglers may now keep five trout daily during the season from that stretch. Previously, the regulations there allowed for the keeping of two trout.

Is this a bad regulation? No! This is a good regulation.

But, if good regulations can be enacted without full disclosure then so can bad ones.

I asked Don Cosden about the matter. Cosden now has the job that Lunsford once held.

“You are right, we didn’t present this change at the public meetings,” Cosden wrote in an e-mail. “It came from a comment offered to us at the Cumberland open house. It’s not our policy to make regulation changes without having them through the public meeting process, but in this case we believed and still believe that it would receive universal support. In addition, if we had waited for the next public meeting cycle to make that change, your readers and others would have needlessly lost that fishing opportunity for at least this season.

“In hindsight, we could have and should have given you and other media outlets a heads up that we were adding this change. That was an oversight on my part, but there was no deliberate intent to misinform or hide information from you or the anglers.”

Cosden in his reply said that in mid-August a statement explaining the Wills Creek regulation change was posted on the agency Web site, thus making it public. The regulation of course jumped through the required hoop of being published in the Maryland Register. That happened in late September.

Here is a news flash for the fisheries administrators. There are still fishermen out there who do not have personal computers. I hear from hunters and anglers on a regular basis who are looking for information and have no way of getting it in cyber space.

I can tell you this, in the 31 years I have been writing about hooks and bullets for the Cumberland Times-News, I cannot recall a single Maryland hunting regulation change that I didn’t know about ahead of time, before the regulation booklet was published. Why is that? It is because the wildlife managers made sure word was put out through news releases and phone calls and, more recently, via e-mails.

Cosden said a fishery biologist has recently been designated to help the agency get information out to the media and the public.

Well here is another news flash, the Maryland Department of Natural Resources has a number of employees in its Office of Communications who could have been helping you do that all along.

Oh. By the way, the fact that this lower segment of Wills Creek has been changed to put-and-take angling means that it will have a closure period this spring, something it didn’t have before. Local trout anglers who have been used to fishing that stretch all year long might want to watch out for that.

Contact Outdoor Editor Mike Sawyers at msawyers@times-news.com.