It’s a long way from happening and certainly no guarantee, but after six years of uncertainty, lawsuits and questions, Maine may become the first state to be given an incidental take permit for trapping by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

GORHAM — A lightly attended meeting Thursday on Maine’s request for a federal permit for a trapping program was an anticlimactic chapter in the long effort.

Ice fishermen might not like it, and anglers in general may roll their eyes at another set of regulations, but if Maine grows more wild brook trout waters with the proposed fishing regulations, how can this be bad?

I sometimes joke that I’ll be the first to admit when I’m wrong, if that should ever happen. It finally did, and I must humbly disclose that I owe the snowshoe hare an apology.

All my life, Maine’s varying-hare season has run from Oct. 1 to Mar. 31, one of the few hunting-season constants when some reaches my age.