About Pep Jigs

The PEP Jig Company is a little known jewel of Southern California’s South Bay region. A machinist by the name of Earl Pace was a frequent passenger on the sportfishing boats in the area. One of his favorite quarries was the California Barracuda and his favorite method of catching these fish was the surface iron. It was the captains of the day who fueled his desire to perfect surface iron fishing for Barracuda as they would continually chide him about his inability to catch these fish using the technique dear to his heart. Experiment after experiment, design after design Mr. Pace endeavored to create the barracuda catching lure. After seasons of experimentation, he landed on a very unique design that the sh just could not resist. The step jig was born and the PEP Jig company, which stood for Pearl & Earl Pace was formed. Even in their heyday, the PEP jigs were commonly only available from the galley cooks of the local South Bay boats. In limited distribution, you may get them at Hermosa Tackle Box, Jerry’s, Red’s, Mack’s or TC’s Tackle. All of which were South Bay area shops.

Flash forward to 2015. Randy Penny, owner of United Composites USA had owned the PEP Jigs Company for many years and like his predecessor, just didn’t have the time, or motivation to increase production and distribution. Now, with distribution in place to handle getting the product to market, he stepped up production and the PEP Jigs have again hit the market!

Although most of the PEP jigs from the original company were light-weight aluminum surface iron jigs, Randy chose to introduce a full lineup of solid heavy-weight brass jigs from the same molds. You have your choice of surface or yo-yo jigs. The key is that with a heavy PEP Jig model, you will have theuttering fall and the swim of the surface iron with the weight to get to deeper depths faster.