Turtlebox Ranger - The Perfect Portable Fishing Speaker

I almost always have a speaker on me when I fish, and it started out as a safety concern. A lot of my early fly fishing was done in bear and moose country, where it was important to make some sort of constant human noise on my hikes to streams. Sometimes I didn’t bring a friend along to talk with, so music was the solution.

A Small Size With a Big Sound

If you want a speaker that fits in a hiking pack, it makes sense that you’ll have to sacrifice some volume. It’s about finding a good balance. The Ranger weighs less than 2.5 lbs, fits in the side water bottle compartment of my backpack, and plays pretty damn loud. It gets up to 105 decibels, and I don’t think I’ve ever had to max out its volume.

Built Tough for the Outdoors

Because I like to keep my speaker in an outer compartment of my backpack, it tends to fall out every time I bend over to pick something up or lace up a wading boot. I’ve dropped it on rocks, boat bottoms, sand, dirt, and just about anything else that could be damaging. Somehow, no scratches to speak of and no change in sound quality.

Safe Around the Water

This is a big one. Not every portable speaker is waterproof, and if you’re going to bring it fishing, it sure should be. In theory, you can submerge the Ranger in up to three feet of water for thirty minutes without any damage. I haven’t tried that and can’t speak to it, but I can say that it has handled several inadvertent floats downriver like a champ.

Impressive Battery Life

The Ranger gives you more than 12 hours of battery life from a single charge. Rarely do I remember to bring it out fully charged, but that’s user error. If you plan ahead, that should have you covered on any day trip, with plenty of juice to spare.

Special Features

The more I use it, the more I realize I haven’t scratched the surface of what the Ranger can do. If you have a friend with one, you can pair them to achieve a stupid level of volume. It has magnetic mounts that will keep it from sliding around the bottom of a boat or a truck bed, plus a USB-C port to charge the phone that you rely on to know where you are.

No Problems to Speak Of

I think this is the best compliment that can be paid to a piece of outdoor gear. I never have trouble packing it, it only dies on me when it’s my own fault, and it withstands some pretty reckless use. The Ranger fills a real niche in the outdoor world – a portable speaker that’s as tough as it claims to be.

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The gear reviewed in this article was provided to me at no cost for the purpose of evaluation.The views and assessments presented are my own.