Pantone Color of the Year 2025: Mocha Mousse or Zoom Pumpkin?

Kurt Mazurek | Dec 6, 2024

I thought that Pantone Color of the Year 2025 Mocha Mousse looked familiar. / Pantone | Zoom

As a long time creative marketing professional, I couldn’t help but see the news of Pantone’s 2025 color of the year, Mocha Mousse. But as an even longer time bass angler, I couldn’t help think I’ve seen that color before. Wait, is that Zoom Bait Company’s classic, pumpkin color (sans flake, of course)? It’s pretty close, anyway.

And, as we know from the scientific study of bass, it looks like the 2025 Color of the Year, Mocha Mousse, falls right in their color vision wheelhouse, somewhere between red and green on the spectrum.

The real question is, would a bass eat Pantone Mocha Mousse? / Google | Dreamstime.com | © Deepcameo | ID 9006525

As reported on Pantone’s website, VP of the Pantone Color Institute, Laurie Pressman said “For Pantone Color of the Year 2025, we look to a mellow brown hue whose inherent richness and sensorial and comforting warmth extends further into our desire for comfort, and the indulgence of simple pleasures that we can gift and share with others.”

“I bet they’d eat that,” responded bass anglers everywhere.

Of course, I’m just having a little fun with this, but it does give us bass anglers an opportunity to think about how bass perceive color and how it might affect our lure choices. I wrote an article recently about the undeniable effectiveness of the black and blue jig, but the scientific fact that bass very likely can’t see blue at all. I find that fascinating–a bit frustrating, but fascinating. For anyone else who’s interested, there is a good bit of scientific study out there, but my personal favorite source of information is the out-of-print book by Dr. Keith Jones, “Knowing Bass”. In this book he goes deep into the science of bass and clears up a lot of common misconceptions about how bass must experience the world. If you ever happen to find a copy, I strongly recommend buying it.

Science tells us that Pantone Mocha Mousse lands right in the part of the spectrum bass see best. / Dr Keith Jones | Knowing Bass

Will this Pantone announcement create a spike in pumpkin worm sales? Probably not. Will Zoom capitalize on the opportunity by releasing a repackaged Mocha Mousse/Black Flake version of their famous worms? Probably not. Did the folks at Pantone think some goofy bass guy would be comparing their color of the year to a rubber worm? Probably not.

FOR MORE BASS COLOR THEORY, READ THIS NEXT
The Science of Bass Fishing Doesn’t Add Up. Why Do Black and Blue Jigs Work So Well?

The Science of Bass Fishing Doesn’t Add Up. Why Do Black and Blue Jigs Work So Well? / Kurt Mazurek