Often belittled and berated and the subject of derision in some circles, the carp is venerated among anglers in England and Europe — and with a group of devotees in the Pacific Northwest.

"It's a game fish that's kind of neglected by the rest of the United States," said Ron Nathlich of Hillsboro, who got hooked on fishing for carp "four or five years ago, probably."

He ticked off some of the reasons for his passion.

"Almost anywhere you go, there's going to be carp, and nobody fishes for them. And it's generally going to be the biggest fish in the lake. And they fight really well."

Nathlich doesn't recall how he got started in the sport, but it probably was by talking to someone such as David Burgess, also of Hillsboro, who was sharing a stretch of the bank at Freeway Lakes south of Albany.

Burgess, a British expat, brought his love of European-style carp fishing along with an accent as thick as a London fog when he emigrated to the U.S. 13 years ago.

"A long time, 20, 30 years, roughly," Burgess said about acquiring his passion for carp. "I like the fact that not many people fish for them. It's more exciting not knowing what's in the water.

"Back in England, the lakes are stocked with carp. And you pretty much know what's in there before you even get to the lake."

Carp fishing the way it's practiced by Burgess, Nathlich and other aficionados is as much a ritual and social event as a fishing outing. And the elaborate equipment setup is a dead giveaway that you are among the practitioners.

There are the rod cradles called pods that hold two rods, each of them pointed like gun muzzles horizontally at the water.

Each of the rods is equipped with a super-sensitive electronic strike indicator that sends a signal to an alarm carried by the angler that will beep when a carp nibbles the bait, or even when a fish brushes the line.

Even the reels are custom carp tackle with two drags, one when the fish takes the bait and the other to play the carp.

"Everything you see here came from Europe; almost everything came from England," Nathlich said with a nod to his pod rigged with two rods at the ready. "There's well over $1,000 just sitting right there.

"Carp fishing in England is as big as football or baseball are here. And there's a couple of dozen carp-fishing (TV) shows on every day. It's huge in Europe, huge."

Most of the anglers in the carp-fishing community around Portland know each other and share fishing reports.

The one thing they won't reveal, except with trusted friends, are bait recipes, said Nathlich, whose largest carp checked in at 36 pounds.

"It's a secret," he said about the sealed jars of baits looking like a collection of marbles. "Any derivative of corn works well. There's an amino acid in corn that stimulates them to feed."

Then there are the special ingredients: "Several people actually use different-flavored colas, actually."

Along with the camaraderie, there also is an element of gear one-upsmanship. Nathlich even confessed to a certain pod envy for Burgess' setup.

"David's pod is all surgical stainless steel," he said. "That's like the top of the line; that's the one that everybody would like to have. You don't have to worry about rain or rust.

"Another friend of ours bought the exact same one. And I'll eventually get it. It might be the one after this."

There was a huge splash out in the middle of east Freeway Lake. Both anglers stared.

"That carp that jumped was at least 20 pounds," Nathlich said. "And it jumped a good 2 feet out of the water."

Lest you think that that European-style carp fishing as practiced in the Pacific Northwest is deadly serious business, there's also a lot of ribbing and inside jokes among the fraternity.

"The King of the Zak Dingles is coming down a little bit later. Zak Dingle is from a British soap opera, and it just sounds silly," Burgess said about the group's nickname for smaller carp, which also are called pastys for the small nipple coverings used mostly by exotic dancers."

Their mutual friend, the King of the Zak Dingles, aka the King of Pastys, who shall remain nameless, acquired the nicknames during a trip by several members of the fraternity to Banks Lake in Washington.

"He caught like …" Burgess began, than broke into peals of laughter. "Dozens and dozens," Nathlich picked up the tale, then couldn't quit laughing himself, "of tiny ones," Burgess finished the sentence, then continued as both laughed. "There's photos of him just surrounded by little tiny fish. We call him the King of Pastys because he catches a lot of small ones."

The king also spends more money on gear than almost any other angler in the group, both added.

"It's like I said, 'the more stuff you buy, the less you catch,'" Burgess said, then broke into laughter again. "So he's doomed himself now."

Neither had fished Freeway Lakes before, but they had heard through the carp grapevine — emails, Facebook posts and cell phone calls — that there were fish to be had.

But probably not the trophy 50- to 100-pounders that are caught at private lakes in Britain and Europe.

"From what that guy said, they bow-fish this lake, and obviously the bigger fish are easier to hit," Burgess said about archery carp hunting. "So I'm guessing that this lake is probably full of small fish."

That's a far cry from the European experience where landowners with lakes will pay big bucks to buy large carp from breeders to stock the waters where they charge an access fee, $20 to $30 a day and up, to fish for carp.

"Some of the fish are worth thousands if not tens of thousands of dollars," Burgess said. "Like if you've got a 50-pound carp in your lake, you're going to get a lot of people coming to fish it. It's a big draw."

"Rainbow's like $1,500 a week," Nathlich said about the fees to fish legendary Rainbow Lake (Lac De Curton) in France.

"Yea, but Rainbow's got like 90-pound fish in it," Burgess said, then laughed. "So if you've got fish that weigh like 100 pounds, you can pretty much charge what you want."

"I actually have a friend who's fishing Rainbow right now," Nathlich said.

"So he's paying $1,500 a week?" Burgess asked.

"Plus the travel," his fishing buddy responded.

Because of the value, European carp fishing is catch-and-release except for occasional culls of smaller fish to avoid overcrowding.

Burgess said the thought of actually killing a large carp was anathema.

"Like if you got caught trying to take a carp, that's like a no-no," he said, then laughed. "You'd be banned from the lake if you got caught.

"You'd probably actually get taken to court. Because if you caught a 50-pound carp that somebody's paid $10,000 for, you know, that's a lot of money."

So valuable are the carp that each is landed with a special collapsible triangular net with soft, fine-meshed knotless netting to prevent damage to the fish. And they never touch the bank.

Each is laid out on a landing mat, a sort of soft-sided carp bassinet carrier to cradle it.

Both Nathlich and Burgess had their carp nets and landing mats at the ready.

The bigger fish at British and European carp lakes are given names.

When one is caught, it is weighed and measured and photos are taken with the lucky angler. Then the information and pictures go into albums at the lake's lodge that show the entire history of the larger fish over the years.

When asked if he would even have believed a half-dozen years ago when he fished almost exclusively for salmon and sturgeon that he would have been sucked so deep into carp fishing, Nathlich shook his head gently.

"Not at all," he said with a final laugh., (503) 399-6725 or follow at and friend or

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