AUGUSTA – Some 260,000 anglers in the state who will soon be picking up the newly-printed 2007 open-water fishing regulation books along with their licenses should be aware of a Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife gaffe.

It’s not an early April Fools joke to coincide with the April 1 start of the open-water fishing season.

Instead, the-catch-that-got-away involves three laws concerning smelting in an Aroostook County brook and statewide size limits for trout that were mistakenly omitted from 305,000 copies.

The goof, however, wasn’t noticed until a week after about 280,000 books were delivered to licensing agents statewide, department spokesman Mark Latti said Thursday morning by phone.

“This will not have a huge impact, but it is a mistake. Hopefully, people will find out about it. Our goal is compliance,” he said.

Department workers are placing an adhesive label containing the omitted regulations on the front cover of their remaining 25,000 law books. They are also forwarding labels to license agents, so they can help fix the distributed copies.

Regarding the missing fishing laws:

• Mud Brook, a tributary of Long Lake in Aroostook County, is open to smelt dip-netting this year due to a bill passed last April. Last year, all tributaries of the lake in Township 17, Range 3 were closed to smelting. Under the law, a person cannot exceed the daily bag limit of 2 quarts per person and can’t harvest smelts for commercial purposes. The law allows smelt dipping this spring, and in the spring of 2008 and 2009.

• Under general law provisions for lakes and ponds, the minimum length limit on brook trout is 6 inches, and in the same section, but under daily bag and possession limits, the possession limit on togue or lake trout, is two fish.

“Most people who are fishing lakes and ponds don’t keep trout under 6 inches anyways, because they’re striving for larger fish,” Latti said.

The last time something like this happened was in 2005 when the department’s ice fishing rule book wrongly opened popular Parker Pond in Mount Vernon to fishing through ice-out, two months longer than normal. A second error allowed anglers to use up to five lines to land the pond’s landlocked salmon, brookies and other species; it was two lines prior. Another regulation foul-up opened Parker to night fishing for smelt, which is the prime cuisine for trout and salmon.

To ensure that the 2007 mistakes don’t happen again, Latti said the department will include longer review times between drafts and printing, and get more people doing it before the books are sent to print. Additionally, the MDIF&W will use the same design software now being used by the printing company.

All told, the department prints about 1 million rule books for hunting, fishing, all-terrain vehicle riding, boating, and more.

Latti said the 2007 hunting and trapping law book will be published this summer under the revised system.