JIM BROWN

After he developed the program that opened nine long-closed San Diego city lakes to the public, he set rules that helped create the best trophy bass fishing in America. His advocacy for public access elsewhere includes helping open the Owens River Gorge and the Haiwee reservoirs.

Brown is an avid, accomplished angler who has fished lakes across Southern California and an expert turkey hunter who has ventured throughout Southern California and beyond. He has used that expertise to also create a series of youth fishing programs, including one in which off-duty police officers served as fishing guides for at-risk youth, and creation of Chollas Lake as a “kids only” fishing hole. He pioneered the first catch-and-release warm water fishery in America to protect northern strain largemouth bass, expanded a waterfowl hunting program and a hunting program for turkeys that included a blind for hunters confined to wheelchairs. He is the co-founder of San Diego Trout. As co-founder and co-host of the “All Outdoors Radio Network,” many have followed Brown’s travels and adventures throughout his career.

The retired manager of the San Diego City Lakes Program fought for public recreational access

by Bryce Miller, San Diego Union-Tribune

To understand why Jim Brown will be inducted into the California Outdoors Hall of Fame on Saturday in Sacramento, imagine the fancy footwork of Fred Astaire mixed with the determination of marathoner Meb Keflezighi.

Brown, the retired manager of the San Diego City Lakes Program, championed public access to recreational opportunities. Where he found walls, he patiently and persistently built doors. When he encountered tired or outdated resistance, he partnered rather than pound fists.

Bureaucrats responded more effectively to bridge-building than bellowing, he reasoned — so he shook hands instead of shoulders.

“I found ways to build relationships with people who might have been opposed to ideas initially,” said Brown, a Tierrasanta resident who turns 73 on Sunday. “If someone said Fish and Game wouldn’t allow me to do something, I’d make them a partner.

“That’s how we started the turkey-hunting program at Lake Sutherland, which might be the only program of its kind on city-owned land.”

This Astaire figured out when to lead … and when to follow. This Keflezighi understood some races required sustained focus and effort, not sprints. That unique combination inspired friends Bruce Bochy, the former Padres and Giants manager, and Poway’s Kevin McNamara to nominate Brown for the hall.

Brown will enter with a class that includes fearless climber Alex Honnold, the subject of the Oscar-winning documentary “Free Solo.” Although Brown’s contributions lack Honnold’s cinematic splash, the commitment to ensuring the public shared in San Diego County’s outdoor riches became a dogged climb of its own.

In eighth grade at an outdoors career conference, the Roosevelt Junior High student joined others asked about what job path they might consider. Some said wardens. Others said rangers. Brown pointed to county lakes manager Orville P. Ball.

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“I said, ‘I want Mr. Ball’s job,’ ” he said. “It was greeted with laughter, but 14 years later I had it.”

At age 15, Brown faced off with the city’s water department about decisions that damaged spawning fish and the false denials that followed. He later forced the hand of that same department, opening Lake Hodges to the public after two decades of closure.

Openings at Barrett Lake and Upper Otay followed.

While shepherding the city’s lakes from 1974 to 2003, Brown launched a program that began in Barrio Logan, collaborating with police to introduce kids in the city to fishing. He wrote a longtime outdoors column in the San Diego Tribune and connected with others by co-hosting a radio show on KCBQ called “The All-Outdoors Radio Network.”

Brown also taught outdoors-related courses as an adjunct professor at San Diego State and the former United States International University.

There’s no one in San Diego I know better than Brown, to be fully transparent. He befriended me without reservation or conditions upon my Union-Tribune arrival. Those same traits and tools, I discovered, helped him to navigate tangled red tape to the recreational benefit of thousands upon thousands across the county.

The number of people Brown has taught fly-fishing techniques to alone staggers. Trust me, there’s no more patient pursuit.

“I really appreciate the recognition,” Brown said of the hall induction. “It’s more like something given to a utility player, who can do quite a bit rather than the guy who hits the most home runs or something.

“The reality is, I feel that I’m in there because there’s a whole bunch of different things on different platforms that I’ve done.”

Humble framing from someone entrusted to oversee and foster, at its zenith, the largest municipally operated reservoir recreation program in the country.

At boat ramps across San Diego County, fishing guides and others lament how the program has wilted without Brown’s visionary, sleeves-rolled leadership. Some talk about the fisherman and game-bird hunter with reverence, like a celebrity dressed in camo.

The road Brown followed seemed somewhat inevitable for a kid who claims he learned to read by thumbing through Field & Stream, Outdoor Life and Sports Afield. A few days a week, he would wander to the National History Museum in Balboa Park to soak up information on every animal he could.

An unquenchable fascination with the outdoors fueled advocacy as an adult. Countless scores benefited.

“My approach was, if it’s a public resource, I should find a way to give the public access to it,” Brown said.

Slick, steady footwork indeed.