An Atlantic salmon conservation legend has died. Len Rich, a founding member and the first president of the Salmon Preservation Association for the Waters of Newfoundland (SPAWN), died in North Bay, Ont. at about 3 a.m. Monday after a hard struggle with pancreatic cancer. A memorial service is being planned for Orangeville, Ont. this weekend with a service set for Clarenville on April 25. Mr. Rich’s ashes are to be spread at Awesome Lake, home to a fishing lodge he founded. Born in 1938 and raised in Whitehall, New York, Mr. Rich moved to Corner Brook in 1966 where he bought his first fly rod. Ken Rich, one of Mr. Rich’s sons, said his father liked to move around and didn’t settle in one place or one job for too long. In addition to his angling activities, he said Mr. Rich also ran an archery club, a fly tying club and became and accomplished author. He penned at least six published books. He’s written another two childrens books that are unpublished and Ken said he wrote a science fiction novel that was lost, with no backup in place, to a computer crash. Ken’s favourite memory of his father was on the river when he was a teenager more than 30 years ago. “He took me to Pinchgut Brook one time and there were some guys in the pool down below us beating the water black and blue trying different flies,” Ken said. “When they finally moved on he said ‘look down right there and what do you see.’ I said ‘it looks like pinfish’. He said ‘no that’s a small deep pool and that’s salmon lying up down there.’ He said ‘watch this.’ He tied on a certain fly of a certain size and he said this is the only fly these fish are going to take, now you just watch what happens.’ He let the pool settle down a bit, he put the fly out there and bammo! Salmon.” Ches Loughlin, one of the earliest members and second president of SPAWN, said Mr. Rich took a lot of flak in those early months of the organization from people who didn’t understand what the organization was about. Despite handing over the presidency, Loughlin said Mr. Rich continued in the role of editor of “The Spawner” for about six years. “I don’t know anybody who wrote as smoothy as he did whether it was a story for ‘The Spawner’ or an article for The Western Star,” Loughlin said. “He’s written several books and he had a very smooth way of writing things, very clear and very precise.” Gudrid Hutchings, past president of the Newfoundland and Labrador Outfitters Association, said Mr. Rich fought an incredible fight, losing more than 100 pounds in a year. She said Mr. Rich was a legend in hunting and fishing in the province between his outdoors skills and his writing skills. She said he was a great influence on her. She said his encouragement helped her start her own outfitting lodge. “He was always a jolly fellow,” Hutchings said. “He was always there for the resource, always had a story and could always relate to anyone at any time in any place. “When I was starting my camp 15 years ago, I was a woman in a man’s world. He was always there to say ‘yeah do it, you can do it.’ Building a remote lodge in the middle of nowhere was challenging enough and being a woman added another whole side and Len was one who always said ‘you’re one of the boys. You can do this.’” Rich Williams, former managing editor of The Star, remembers Mr. Rich as a man with a vast understanding that shone through in his writing, especially concerning outdoor issues. “He was a good writer,” Williams said. “He was very talented. Len was very talented and that really showed in the years after he left us when he was involved in the magazines and ‘The Spawner’ magazine. He wrote a lot of articles for magazines. “He was known for his salmon flies. He tied very good flies.”