Lake Seminole is the impounded upper end of Long Bayou, a brackish arm of Boca Ciega Bay. Small tributaries and urban stormwater feed it; a weir at the south end drains it into Long Bayou and holds the lake roughly five feet above the bayou. Treat it as self-contained — no source addresses vessel passage past the weir either way, and the county classes this as a freshwater ramp.
There is no live lake stage, and that matters more than usual: the last documented level event is Hurricane Helene damaging the south-end weir in September 2024 and releasing water into Long Bayou “at an accelerated rate,” per local reporting, with no agency confirmation of the permanent repair as of July 2026. The USGS lake station stopped publishing daily values in 2013. Call the park at (727) 464-3000 before you tow. Vegetation is the other seasonal variable — as of September 2024 the county was treating water hyacinth and water lettuce roughly every three weeks, finished a large hydrilla treatment that month, and planned another 100 grass carp for winter 2024–25. Algae is a warm-season risk with history at this exact ramp: DOH-Pinellas posted bloom alerts here in April and June 2023, though nothing dated 2025 or 2026 has appeared.
Plain English Summary
| Fish Management Area — trotlines | Lake Seminole is a designated FWC Fish Management Area in Pinellas County. "Trotlines may be used from sunset until 9 a.m." — with no day-of-week limit, unlike nearby Lake Tarpon, whose trotline rule runs Sunday through Thursday. FWC Fish Management Areas page and Fla. Admin. Code R. 68A-20.005; repeated on Pinellas County's Lake Seminole Park page. |
| Fish Management Area — channel catfish | "No Bag Limit for Channel Catfish" on Lake Seminole (FWC; Fla. Admin. Code R. 68A-20.005; stated on Pinellas County's Lake Seminole Park page and in FWC's Southwest Region freshwater regulations). |
| Swimming | "Swimming is not permitted" at Lake Seminole Park (Pinellas County Parks & Conservation Resources). |
| Water entry | "Please only use designated boat ramp for water entry and exit with your vessel" (Pinellas County Parks & Conservation Resources). |
| Ramp parking fee | Mandatory: "$6 per day for a vehicle parking with or without a trailer," paid at a cashless pay-by-plate station that is "cashless, only accepting Visa, MasterCard, and American Express credit cards" — or covered by the Annual Boat & Beach Pass at "$110 plus tax. Total Base Rate: $117.70." "Parking fees are waived with a valid disabled parking permit/tag." (Pinellas County, Boat Ramp Parking, retrieved 2026-07-31.) |
| Hours | Park hours bind launch access: "Open 7 days a week, 7 a.m. to sunset," and "County Parks are closed two days throughout the year, the day after Thanksgiving and December 25." The county's Boat Ramp Parking page gives the ramp as "Open 7 a.m. to Dusk." FWC's inventory row records Hours as Daytime Use Only. |
| Motor and speed restrictions | We found no horsepower cap, electric-only rule or lake-wide no-wake zone in the Pinellas County Lake Seminole Park page, the county Boat Ramp Parking page, FWC's Fish Management Areas entry, FWC's Southwest Region freshwater regulations or Fla. Admin. Code R. 68A-20.005. One document we could not read: Pinellas County Code § 130-103, "Location of idle speed/no wake zones; actions regulated," is the ordinance that would carry any county-designated zone, and pinellascounty.elaws.us blocks automated retrieval. Treat this as unread, not as settled. |
| Water quality status | Advisory, not a prohibition: Lake Seminole (WBID 1618) is listed as Impaired and is the subject of an FDEP Reasonable Assurance Plan — developed by Pinellas County in 2007, adopted by Secretarial Order in 2012, with update reports in 2011, 2015, 2019 and 2024. |
| Full legal text | Official boating regulations → |
Can I launch a trailered motorboat on Lake Seminole, and what does it cost?
Can I run from Lake Seminole out to Boca Ciega Bay?
Is the lake low after the 2024 hurricane damage to the weir?
How deep is Lake Seminole?
Is the fishing good here?
Can I swim or let the dog in?
Lake Seminole is a manufactured lake in the middle of suburban Pinellas County and does not pretend otherwise: until the late 1940s it was a brackish arm of Boca Ciega Bay, closed off by the construction of Park Boulevard and turned fresh. Today it is 684 acres of shallow, wind-exposed water — 5 to 6 feet on average, just over three miles long — wrapped by a 258-acre county park. The county has spent two decades and more than $30 million cleaning it up, capped by dredging roughly 900,000 cubic yards of muck by late 2020.
The five-lane concrete ramp is as easy as urban launches get: paved trailer parking, restrooms, 7 a.m. to dusk, $6 per day at a cashless pay-by-plate station — card only, know your tag number. Swimming is prohibited park-wide. Manage fishing expectations: the county itself says rough fish now outnumber sport fish, though Fish Management Area rules sweeten the deal with legal trotlines from sunset to 9 a.m. and no bag limit on channel catfish. Hurricane Helene damaged the south-end weir in 2024 and no repair has been confirmed, so call (727) 464-3000 about water levels before towing. And ignore most of what search results say about “Lake Seminole” fishing — it usually belongs to the 37,500-acre reservoir on the Georgia line, a different water entirely.