Caloosahatchee River

The Caloosahatchee River runs about 67 miles along the southwest Gulf Coast of Florida. It drains rural land on the northern edge of the Everglades. The river starts at Lake Hicpochee in southeastern Glades County and flows west-southwest past LaBelle, where it becomes tidal. It then widens as it passes Fort Myers and Cape Coral and enters the Gulf of Mexico at San Carlos Bay. Its basin covers 1,377 square miles. In 1881 Hamilton Disston had a canal dug from Lake Okeechobee to Lake Hicpochee and had the upper river straightened. Today the river, also called C-43, is a channelized flood-control and navigation waterway. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers maintains it as part of the Okeechobee Waterway. Three locks control the river: Moore Haven (S-77), Ortona (S-78) and the Franklin Lock and Dam near Olga. The Franklin structure keeps the fresh river water apart from the saltwater estuary and marks the start of a 30-mile tidal reach.

Public launches include the LaBelle Recreation Access Area at Bob Mason Park, the Corps' Franklin Lock North and South Recreation Areas, and Lee County's Alva and Davis boat ramps. Others are Fort Myers Centennial Park and Cape Coral's Yacht Club Park ramp, plus several paddlecraft launches. In Lee County, state manatee protection rules set speed zones on the river. Parts of the shoreline between Cape Coral, North Fort Myers and Fort Myers are slow speed all year, though the marked Intracoastal Waterway channel is excluded. Near Beautiful Island and Thompson Cutoff, the channel is limited to 25 mph from April to mid-November.

A federal manatee refuge lies at the river's mouth on San Carlos Bay. In 2013, high water in Lake Okeechobee led the Corps to release large amounts of polluted lake water into the river's estuary.