Everglades City and Chokoloskee are the gateway to the Ten Thousand Islands, and the National Park Service’s own Gulf Coast facility is the main launch point for both a trailered boat and a paddlecraft heading into that water.
The Marjory Stoneman Douglas Visitor Center at the Gulf Coast site is open 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily. Its adjacent canoe/kayak launch gives non-motorized craft access to the Marjory Stoneman Douglas Wilderness, the Ten Thousand Islands and the Wilderness Waterway. The Park Service has an active project underway to elevate the site against flooding, replace the marina bulkhead, and expand and dredge the marina basin, with the boat basin and channels maintained to -7.7 feet NAVD for the combined boat ramp and kayak launch; maintenance dredging repeats roughly every 6 to 10 years as needed. Specific launch hours and fees for the boat ramp itself weren’t listed on the pages checked for this guide, so check the visitor center page for current details before you go.
The park’s own materials note alternate canoe and kayak launch sites in Everglades City and Chokoloskee, including the Rod and Gun Club, Outdoor Resorts of Chokoloskee, and the Chokoloskee Island Park and Marina. These are useful if the Gulf Coast site’s ramp or launch is closed for the ongoing construction project, though hours and fees for each are set by their own operators rather than the Park Service and weren’t independently confirmed here.
The Ten Thousand Islands system is a maze of mangrove islands and tidal creeks, mostly a boat-and-kayak fishery rather than a shore one. Snook and redfish hold along mangrove shorelines and creek mouths throughout, with tarpon working the deeper passes seasonally. This is not a wade-and-cast spot; plan around a launch, whether that’s the Gulf Coast site or one of the backup marinas. Our snook, redfish and tarpon guides cover tackle for all three.
This is not a system to run blind. The channels between islands are narrow, cut through mud banks and seagrass, and a falling tide can leave you stranded well before you’d expect it in open water. Bring a chart or a GPS unit with real local detail rather than trusting a general marine chartplotter, and build in enough daylight to get back to the launch on the tide you came in on. A kayak gives you more margin for error than a larger boat in the tightest creeks, but it also means covering less ground per hour, so plan the route before you leave the dock rather than deciding as you go.
Fish the mangrove edges and creek mouths on a moving tide rather than the open bays; that’s where snook and redfish actually feed here. Treat the open water in between as transit time to get from one edge to the next.
The Ten Thousand Islands hold some of the least-pressured inshore water left in Southwest Florida, largely because the same complexity that makes it worth planning for also keeps casual traffic out. Snook and redfish here see fewer boats and fewer lines than anywhere closer to Naples or Fort Myers, and that translates into fish that haven’t learned to avoid an angler’s shadow or a poorly placed cast the way they have in more heavily fished water closer to town.
A Florida saltwater fishing license is required to fish anywhere in this system, including inside the national park boundary. See our fishing license guide for exemptions and our regulations page for current season and size limits before you decide what to keep. Confirm the Gulf Coast site’s current construction status directly with the park before you plan a trip around its ramp specifically.