AK Best, the legendary fly tier and author, passed away on August 20, 2025. He was born in 1933 in Iowa, and lived in Michigan before settling down in Colorado. Best was 91.
He was the author of seven fly tying and fishing books, and one of the industry’s most prolific tiers. His patterns were licensed and sold by Orvis, Umpqua, and the Urban Angler in Manhattan, New York.
Before his fly tying career, Best was a musician and music teacher in the Alpena County music department in Michigan. Best eventually moved to Colorado, where he became friends with the late John Gierach. The two fished together frequently, and Best appeared in Gierach’s stories. Gierach returned the favor by writing introductions to a few of Best’s books.
Best was well-known for his ability to tie at a frenetic pace. A well-known example of that is from Gierach’s essay The Big Empty River. The two were fishing the Henry’s Fork and stopped by Mike Lawson’s shop to get the scoop on the river. A certain parachute pattern was the hot ticket that year, so Gierach bought a few, as did Best, albeit grudgingly.
“To A.K., fly fishing involves catching fish witha split bamboo fly rod using flies you’ve tied yourself,” Gierach wrote. “It’s something between a matter or pride and an esthetic judgement. Don’t get me wrong. He doesn’t care what you do. In fact, he’s a professional fly tier and would starve if the majority of fishermen didn’t buy at least some of the flies they fish.
“Still, as he peeled some bills from a modest roll and handed them over, he announced, ‘I’ve tied twenty-five-hundred-dozen flies this year and it burns my ass to have to buy these!’ … In case you don’t have your calculator handy, that’s 30,000 individual flies.”
As such a prolific tier, Best developed his own vise, and his own take on traditional fly tying tools. His designs of both tools and flies have influenced the fly fishing community since their debut. His patterns even gained international acclaim, as Japanese and Swedish magazines both regularly interviewed him.
Best’s instructional manuals are widely considered among the best ever written, and his ability to walk anglers through tough fly patterns made his writing a must-read. His teaching and tying techniques are still routinely referenced by many throughout the industry.
Having lost John Gierach so recently, losing his buddy so soon after seems to put a prologue on an entire epoch. I feel old.
The first time my wife and I fished in Colorado, she ended up with a huge tangle. She went to a nearby picnic table to rebuild her rig and an elderly fisherman stopped to help her. She was trying to decide what fly to put on as a trailer behing the hopper she was using as an indicator and the man pulled a tiny midge out of his flybox, telling her to give it a try.
About 5 casts later she had a chubby 16″ brown on the line. She turned to thank the gentleman- but he was gone. Later I showed her a picture of AK Best. Sure enough it was him. R.I.P. I’m sure that a fisherman’s afterlife is filled with blanket hatches and willing trout.