NEWPORT – Sebasticook Lake is always busy on sunny summer weekends with recreationists, tubers, skiers and the like, but Sunday it was also filled with some very serious competitors.

Twenty-eight teams fought for bass – championship bass.

It was the third annual Outcast Bass Club fishing tournament and it was a huge success. The event not only provided trophies and bragging rights for some lucky bass fishers, but raised $4,500 for the Make A Wish Foundation.

Twenty years ago, a tournament like this would have been a joke.

“In the 1920s, fisherman came up from Boston on the train, just to fish in this lake. It was quite the destination,” longtime resident Dana Hartford said, watching the anglers on the water. “Then the lake turned green.”

Strangled by algae fed by phosphorus running off from surrounding farms, sewage coming in from Dexter and Corinna upstream, and poisonous dyes leaching in from the former Eastland Woolen Mill in Corinna, the lake was dying.

Then along came an ambitious plan hatched by some lake association advocates and the Maine Department of Environmental Protection. Runoff was capped, upstream sources were eliminated and every fall the North Street Dam gate is dropped and the entire lake is emptied to clean out any blooming algae.

“This is a beautiful lake,” first-timer Todd Bridges of Bucksport said. “I’ll be back, that’s for sure.”

Some anglers hit the lake early, while the air was still cool, but come 3 p.m., everyone headed for the boat launch on North Street and the weigh-in. A normally quiet boat launch looked like a Los Angeles freeway on a Friday afternoon.

As the boats pulled in – some in the $30,000 to $45,000 range – the fish tales began. Fishers held their arms out to indicate the ones that got away, shook their heads and scowled. A few lucky anglers brought their bags of live fish to the weighing station.

Justin Veazie, 23, of Corinna, was one of those unlucky fishermen. “The biggest one I caught today was three and a half pounds,” Veazie said. “The only thing I got out of this was a sunburned nose.”

Ken Hoehlein, president of the Outcast Bass Club, said the fishing was slow. “It was really awful in the morning and then it was great by afternoon,” he said. “This is such a great lake. The town has been wonderful, the sponsors amazing. Every year it gets bigger and bigger.”

As the weigh-in began, a crowd pushed closer to the stage, wowing when the fish were huge. All fish caught were released back into the lake following the weigh-in.

This year’s largest catch, which is determined by weighing the heaviest seven fish, beat last year’s record of 20 pounds by a full 2 pounds. The team of Chuck Pine of Orrington and John Goode of Hampden hauled in 22 pounds of bass.

The largest large mouth bass, weighing in at 6 pounds, 12 ounces, was caught by Mike Carroll and Kristin Caruso of Dexter.

The largest small mouth bass, at 4 pounds, 10 ounces, was caught by Wane and Kim Loring of Old Town.

Bill Gagne and Bonne Gagne of Carmel caught the smallest limit, at 9 pounds and 14 ounces.