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GREENSBORO — One more fish pond at the city limit was making room for one more shopping center, but that’s not what drew the crowd.

No, the crowd on the banks of Baldwin’s swimming hole gathered to witness something rare and sweet: vindication.

This time, the storied “one that got away” wasn’t getting away. Fat chance of that: The Dascalakis Co. had the pond near South Elm-Eugene and West Vandalia streets drained Thursday and enlisted the closest thing to expert anglers it could find.

Rather than risk contamination by moving the fish, project engineer Phil Shu was advised to harvest them. Enter the Montagnard- Dega Association with a boat, nets and ice.

That left no escape. Not for the six-pound bass; Y Siu Hlong held it up by its gills for the crowd to admire. Nor for the 12-inch pike and the bream — bony, but impressive. Nor the carp, too mushy to eat, nor the crappie that flopped and flailed in the seine nets the Montagnards cast, hip-deep in the mire as the rank pond receded.

“I want to see something that makes me go, 'Wow!’ Like a 30-pound catfish that’s been laying down there five years, 10 years,” Eric Marshall said, watching in suspense from the dam. “The only thing I ever caught here was a headache.”

As Daniel Pride inspected a neighbor’s cooler packed with bass, he felt justified in what he swore all along about this fishing hole. “I KNEW there was some bass out here,” he said.

“Yeah,” Marshall said. “Tell us about that one that got away.”

Contact Lorraine Ahearn at 373-7334 or lorraine.ahearn@news-record.com