At age 21, Georgian Buddy Benson has already competed in 22 Bassmaster Opens and Elite Qualifiers. He earned a check in 11 of those events, giving him a very respectable .500 batting average.
His first go at the Opens took place when he was a 16-year-old attending Dawson County High School. He fished as a co-angler and finished atop the overall Angler of the Year standings.
All-in on fishing
When Benson joined the high school’s fishing team, he dropped the other sports he had been competing in, including football, basketball and baseball. He was all-in for his first love — bass tournament fishing. He won seven state high school championship trophies fishing with B.A.S.S. and another circuit.
He also competed in BFL tournaments as a boater in his sophomore through senior years and qualified for that circuit’s All-American.
He returned to the Opens in 2023 after graduating from high school and has been at it ever since. Although he has consistently finished in the money, he has stubbed his toe with a bad finish often enough to prevent him from achieving his dream of becoming an Elite angler.
Back in the Opens
Benson qualified for the EQs last year and scored a top 30 finish at Wheeler Lake. Even so, he failed to sack enough points at Champlain to compete in the final EQ of the season.
After notching back-to-back 15th-place finishes in the first two events in Division 1 of the 2026 Bassmaster Opens, he currently holds second place in that division’s AOY standings. The experience he has gained from fishing the Opens makes it less likely he will stub his toe this time around.
“I might have been smarter to fish on a college team and cut my teeth on many of the lakes I’ve fished for the first time in the Opens,” Benson said. “But the Opens have been a blessing. I’ve fished a lot of new lakes, and I’m learning a bunch.”
Formative fishing years
One of his fishing mentors was grandfather Robert Benson, an avid stream trout angler who made his fly rods from bamboo and wrote occasional articles for Field & Stream magazine.
“Grandpa had a shop where he made rods and tied his own flies,” Benson said. “When I was a kid, I’d go in there and talk with him for hours.”
Every year, Benson, his grandfather and his father, Sam Benson, would make an annual trek to Montana and cast flies into the Treasure State’s storied trout streams. They also fished streams in northern Georgia for stocked trout.
“Grandpa passed four years ago,” Benson said. “Twice a year, dad and I fish my grandpa’s favorite Georgia streams with some of the bamboo fly rods he made.”
Father and son
Benson’s other mentor is his father, who fished local bass derbies and some of the region’s larger tournament circuits. When Benson was 6 or 7 years old, his father began taking him to night tournaments on Lake Lanier. He would cast a Fluke or drag a shaky head and usually caught a bass large enough to earn a place in the weigh-in bag.
As Benson grew older and became a more capable angler, he and his father fished a wide variety of tournaments together. They still do, but not as often now that Benson competes in the Opens and works as a fishing guide at Lake Lanier. He guides for bass and crappie and claims Lanier supports a quality crappie fishery that is largely overlooked.
He regards the Bassmaster Opens as the highest-level tournaments he has fished. He hopes to avoid stubbing his toe this season and to become an Elite Series angler.
Benson’s sponsors include Hammonds Fishing, Zoom, State Line Marine, Mercury Marine, Power-Pole, Custom Stone, Professional Stone, MB Residential, T&D Machine Handling and All Purpose Plumbing.
