A 16-year-old angler from Miami caught a new Florida state record jaguar guapote, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission announced.
Xzavier Peon caught the fish weighing 3.02 pounds and measuring 16 inches long in the Westwood Lakes area with live bait in September 2026. The previous state record, set in 2017, had stood for nine years.
"When I hooked it, I thought it was a peacock bass. But once the giant jaguar came up I knew that it was a state record almost instantly," Peon said in a statement from the commission.
Jaguar guapote are found primarily in the urban canal systems of southeast Florida and are one of more than 30 nonnative freshwater fish species established in the state. The FWC encourages anglers to catch and eat nonnative fish to control their numbers and reduce impacts on native fish populations.