Home › Florida › Osceola County

Alligator Lake

Osceola County, Florida Natural Lake Connected Water
3,484.4 acres32 ft deep2 ramps
Florida Department of Health fish-consumption advisory (June 2021), listed under “Alligator Lake (Kissimmee Chain of Lakes),” Osceola County: women of childbearing age and young children should not eat largemouth bass from this lake, and all other individuals should limit largemouth bass to one meal per month. The contaminant of concern is mercury. The same guide lists black crappie at one meal per month for both groups; bluegill, redear sunfish and channel catfish at one meal per month for women of childbearing age and young children and two meals per week for everyone else; and warmouth and brown bullhead catfish at two meals per week for both groups. — check the current advisory source for updates.
No cyanobacteria or blue-green algae health alert was posted for Alligator Lake (Osceola County) as of 30 July 2026. That is a fast-moving category — check Florida DEP’s algal bloom dashboard before you swim or run a dog in the water. — check the current advisory source for updates.
Alligator Lake Access Map 2 ramps
Depth Map → Click markers for details
Boat Ramps on Alligator Lake
C-Gate 33 Boat Ramp
Osceola County (SFWMD is listed as a partner administering entity) · Concrete ramp, 1 lane, 5 trailer spots
Open Motorboat Kayak No launch fee recorded — FWC’s inventory shows no fee required and no collection method at this site, but that layer is a 2009 field survey and Osceola County does not publish a fee for this ramp either way. Expect it to be free; call Osceola County parks at 407-742-0375 if you need that confirmed before you tow.
View ramp details →
Trout Lake Public Boat Ramp
Osceola County (FWC is listed as a partner administering entity) · Concrete ramp, 1 lane, 3 trailer spots
Open Motorboat Kayak No launch fee recorded — FWC’s inventory shows no fee required and no collection method at this site, but that layer is a 2009 field survey and Osceola County does not publish a fee for this ramp either way. Expect it to be free; call Osceola County parks at 407-742-0375 if you need that confirmed before you tow.
View ramp details →
Good to Know
Bait & Tackle
Nothing on the lake. Buy bait in St. Cloud before you turn down Hickory Tree Road — there is no store at either ramp.
Picnic Areas
Osceola County describes the C-Gate 33 site as five passive acres with lighting. Nothing else is listed by anybody — bring your own shade and your own table.
Fuel on the Water
No marina, no fuel and no fish camp. FWC’s Osceola County boat-ramp inventory contains 26 sites and not one of them on this chain is a commercial or private facility — every ramp on Alligator, Gentry and Trout is county-owned public access.
Fish Species
Largemouth Bass Black Crappie Bluegill Redear Sunfish Warmouth Channel Catfish Brown Bullhead
Connected Waterways

Alligator is the big end of a five-lake pool: Lizzie, Coon, Center and Trout ride at one elevation, structure-free, and a boat runs the chain through the C-32 canals. No confirmed cut links Center to Coon, and the Brick Lake canal isn't confirmed passable — plan on neither. Downstream, the S-60 spillway blocks the canal to Lake Gentry: no lock, so Gentry is a two-mile tow. Everything else sits behind spillways; the chain's only lock is S-61 at Southport, three pools away, per SFWMD.

Seasonal Conditions

The chain ran low through July 2026 — about 1.3 ft below its regulation schedule on SFWMD's 19 July reading, with zero discharge through S-60. That means skinny flats, bars and stumps closer to the prop, and less depth at the ramps than the concrete suggests — especially the single-lane Trout Lake ramp, which FWC rates low for accessibility. Run the connecting canals slowly; they are narrow cuts, not open water. These are dry conditions, not an emergency — no water shortage order covers the basin. Seasonally it fishes like an upper-basin Osceola lake: shallow, vegetated, largemouth and panfish, best at the cool ends of a summer day and best of all in the spring spawn. Alligator has real fetch for a small boat, afternoon storms arrive fast, and the alligators are not decorative. Hydrilla extent and treatment history here are undocumented — check with FWC's regional office.

Local Watercraft Rules

Plain English Summary

Black bassNo lake-specific rule was found for Alligator Lake (Osceola County). Statewide Florida freshwater regulations apply — check FWC’s current limits before you keep a fish.
AirboatsOsceola County restricts nighttime airboat operation on the Tohopekaliga lakes under Chapter 16 of its Code of Ordinances (§ 16-55); we could not retrieve the current text of that section, so confirm the hours with the county before relying on them. The section does not name Alligator Lake or Lake Gentry. There is also no FWC boating-restricted-area rule for Osceola County in Florida Administrative Code Chapter 68D-24.
No-wake and restricted areasWe have not been able to confirm whether Osceola County designates any no-wake or restricted areas on Alligator Lake or Lake Gentry. Watch for posted signs on the water.
Water-control structuresS-60 sits in the C-33 canal just below the C-Gate 33 ramp, and S-58 sits below Trout Lake in C-32C. Both are spillways, neither is a navigation lock, and there is no lockage service on this chain. Keep well clear from upstream.
Fish consumptionFlorida Department of Health advisory (June 2021): women of childbearing age and young children should not eat largemouth bass from Alligator Lake; all other individuals should limit largemouth bass to one meal per month. Mercury.
Full legal textOfficial boating regulations →
Frequently Asked Questions
Which lakes can I actually reach by boat from Alligator Lake?
Four others, and no more. Alligator, Lake Lizzie, Coon Lake, Lake Center and Trout Lake are one pool: the water management district's canal register names a canal for each link — C-32G Alligator-Lizzie, C-32F Lizzie-Lost, C-32D Lost-Trout — and registers no water-control structure inside the group, while the Corps of Engineers gauges all five on a single line at a single elevation (62.03 ft NGVD29, 29 July 2026). Coon Lake is the "Lost Lake" of those canal names. Lake Center is gauged at the same elevation and lies immediately north of Coon Lake, separated from it by roughly 300 feet, but no navigable cut between the two is confirmed, so treat Center as pool water rather than a guaranteed route. Everything else needs a trailer: Lake Gentry sits below the S-60 spillway, and Lakes Joel, Preston, Myrtle, Mary Jane, Hart, Ajay and East Lake Tohopekaliga sit below S-58, S-57 and S-62 in turn. SFWMD lists no navigation lock at any of them.
Can I run from Alligator Lake down to Lake Gentry?
No. The two lakes are joined by the C-33 canal — the district registers it as the Alligator-Gentry Canal — and the S-60 structure sits in it about 3,700 feet below Alligator Lake. S-60 is a spillway with no navigation lock: SFWMD lists no lock there, and the district’s 2013 Upper Kissimmee waterway map designates only S-61 and S-65 as “Lock and Spillway.” A spillway is not something a boat passes, and there is no lock tender to call for this one. On 29 July 2026 the Corps read Alligator at 62.03 ft NGVD29 and Gentry at 59.52 ft — about two and a half feet of head standing on the structure, with no flow through it. Approach it from upstream and you are approaching a drop. The good news is that trailering is trivial here: the C-Gate 33 ramp and Smith’s Landing on Gentry are less than two miles apart.
Is this the Alligator Lake with the FWC fishing forecast page?
No, and the difference matters. This page is Alligator Lake in Osceola County — about 3,484 acres, in the Upper Kissimmee basin southeast of St. Cloud, the one the Florida Department of Health lists as “Alligator Lake (Kissimmee Chain of Lakes),” Osceola County. FWC’s “Alligator Lake” forecast page is a different lake: roughly 800 acres in Columbia County near Lake City, with its park entrance off Old Country Club Road, and it sits under FWC’s north-central region path. Anything you read there about that lake’s ramps, water levels or sinkholes describes water 200 miles north of here. FWC does not publish a fishery forecast page for Alligator Lake (Osceola County) or Lake Gentry — its site-and-forecast index covers 61 waters statewide and neither of ours is among them. That is a regional pattern, not a slight: East Lake Tohopekaliga, Cypress Lake and Lake Marian are missing from the same index.
How deep is Alligator Lake, really?
FWC's hydroacoustic bathymetry (surveyed 2005–2011, one-foot contours) maps a maximum depth of about 32 feet in a small hole near the middle of the lake. Most of the lake is far shallower. FWC publishes no vertical datum for this layer, so treat 32 feet as a survey-era maximum rather than a depth you can expect at today's stage. The practical framing an angler needs: this is a shallow lake with one deep spot, not a deep lake — the 32-foot hole is a couple of contour features in open water near mid-lake, and it is the deepest water anywhere in the Alligator chain or Lake Gentry. How it got there is undocumented.
Where do I launch, and is there a fish camp?
One public ramp on the lake, one alternate in the same pool, and no camp anywhere. The C-Gate 33 Boat Ramp off Hickory Tree Road (CR 534) is Alligator Lake’s only public launch — concrete, county-run, with a dock, gravel parking and no restroom. It is on the C-33 canal rather than on the lake itself, roughly 3,700 feet below the lake, so you idle out through a canal before you see open water. The alternate is the Trout Lake Public Boat Ramp on Bass Highway — different water, same undivided pool, and a long run down through Trout, Coon and Lizzie to reach Alligator. FWC’s Osceola County inventory of 26 ramps contains no commercial or private facility on this chain: no fish camp, no marina, no fuel, no bait counter, no restrooms at either ramp. Bring what you need.
How low is the water right now?
As of 19 July 2026 the Alligator chain stood about 1.3 ft below its 62.1 ft NAVD88 regulation schedule on SFWMD's weekly report, with zero discharge through S-60. Call it dry conditions: no water shortage order covers this basin, and the deficit is inside the range ordinary regulation produces in a dry summer. On the water it means shallower flats, more exposed structure and less depth at the ramps than you might be used to.
Are there no-wake zones or an airboat curfew here?
The airboat question has a clean answer and the no-wake question does not. Osceola County restricts nighttime airboat operation on the Tohopekaliga lakes under Chapter 16 of its Code of Ordinances (§ 16-55) — confirm the current hours with the county — and the section does not name Alligator Lake or Lake Gentry. There is no FWC boating-restricted-area rule for Osceola County in Florida Administrative Code Chapter 68D-24 either. Whether the county designates no-wake or restricted areas on Alligator Lake or Lake Gentry is unconfirmed — the deciding section of the county code is not readable online. Watch for posted signs on the water.
Scout's Notes
Lake Vibe & Fishing Intel

Alligator Lake was John Cordall Lake once, and it carries a bigger name than either: the Headwaters of the Everglades. It's earned — water leaving this 3,484-acre lake southeast of St. Cloud runs down through Lake Gentry, Cypress, Hatchineha and Kissimmee, down the Kissimmee River to Lake Okeechobee and on into the Everglades. The same flood-control project welded five lakes into one pool — the C-32 canals to Lizzie, Coon, Center and Trout have no structures in them — while the S-60 spillway severs it all from Lake Gentry. FWC's bathymetry maps about 32 feet in a small mid-lake hole, the deepest water in the chain; everything around it is shallow.

Launch at C-Gate 33 off Hickory Tree Road, and know you're launching into a canal, not onto the lake: three-quarters of a mile of idling to open water, with the S-60 spillway just below the ramp. Run the canals through Lizzie and Coon to Trout and back — four lakes and a home lake in a day without touching a structure — and take them slow; the cuts are narrow and the pool ran low all summer. Fish the vegetation edges and wind-blown banks early and late. FWC publishes no forecast page for this lake (its "Alligator Lake" forecast is a Columbia County lake), but health-department sampling gives the species list — bass, crappie, bluegill, redear, warmouth, channel catfish and brown bullhead — and the mercury advisory means women of childbearing age and young children shouldn't eat the bass at all. Lake Gentry is a two-mile tow.

Sources: SFWMD Works of the District canal and structure register (C-32G, C-32F, C-32D, C-33 and S-57, S-58, S-60, S-62 locations and registered canal names), SFWMD Guide to the Kissimmee Waterway (printed September 2008), SFWMD Upper Kissimmee waterway map (2013), SFWMD navigation page and Weekly Environmental Conditions & Operations Report dated 22 July 2026 (Table KB-1, stages of 19 July 2026, NAVD88), USACE Jacksonville District Kissimmee daily report KSSDaily 29 July 2026 (ft-NGVD29), USGS National Map NHD waterbody and flowline layers (Alligator Lake polygon extent and area, Brick-Alligator canal geometry), USGS NWIS site record 02260500 “95E Brick-Alligator Canal nr Ashton, FL,” FWC Bathymetry of Select Lakes in Florida (2005–2011 hydroacoustic contours), FWC Florida Boat Ramp Inventory rows OS00628XJ and OS00283JU (a 2009 survey for fees, hours, lanes and amenities), Osceola County parks-facilities pages for the C-Gate 33 and Trout Lake sites, FWC freshwater sites-and-forecasts index (61 sites, retrieved 30 July 2026), Osceola County Code § 16-55, Florida Administrative Code Chapter 68D-24, Florida Department of Health “Your Guide to Eating Fish Caught in Florida,” June 2021 (v2).
Connected Lakes
Lake GentryConnectedEast Lake TohopekaligaConnected

Know this lake?

Share fishing tips, seasonal patterns, or hazards to help other anglers.

Share Lake Intel →