Casting/Pitching: True to the hyperbole, our Scorpion 1001 was a very easy casting and pitching reel. The externally adjustable 4x4SVS brake system is a welcome departure from Shimano’s covered sideplate, and the reel manages to launch any variety of offerings smoothly and effortlessly even into the wind. In our tests, we were able to cast everything from split shot rigs using a 3/0 weight and #2 light wire hook to three quarter ounce lipless cranks all with relative ease. But perhaps our favorite offerings with the Scorpion were weightless plastics such as the Zoom Horny Toad and Yamamoto Senko. Not once were we disappointed by the Scorpion’s casting performance and we were even more impressed by how well the reel facilitates pitching presentations.
 

Retrieving: The Scorpion is a very smooth retrieving reel. The contoured septon grips, though not bearing supported, still provide an amazingly comfortable form and texture to grip while turning the handle. The handle itself is 70mm in length. A size we found sufficient for working plastics, but too small for working moving baits such as cranks, spinners and buzzbaits. The shorter length simply does not provide sufficient torque for working these types of baits all day long. There are a number of options for installing compatible 80 and 85 mm handles including taking the handle off of a Chronarch SF, but it would far less complicated if a standard length handle were an option from the beginning. Lastly, the infinite anti-reverse on the Scorpion is another area in need of improvement. Holding the spool down with one’s thumb, you can feel quite a bit of play in the handle. This play never became an issue while fishing with the reel, but is simply a gauge we like to use to get an idea of the engineering tolerances associated with the reel’s design. The Scorpion is obviously not a top end import reel, nevertheless, we’ve come to expect more when purchasing the name Shimano.
 

Drag: Another area that can use improvement is the Scorpion’s drag. Though sporting the classic Shimano smoothness, the actual strength of the drag is a mere three pounds of maximum drag pressure as measured in our lab. Though sufficient for finesse applications, we found this amount of pressure lacking when fishing horizontal baits. To compensate for this low amount of drag pressure, we resorted to clamping our thumbs down on the spool during hooksets and while fighting hard charging fish. On the brighter side of things, the actual drag adjustment is enhanced with the classic micro-click adjustment often reserved for higher end reels.