Preliminary review and comparison with old Premier.
The two 34" St Croix Mojo baitcasting rods MH and H are a significant improvement over the old Premier baitcasting rods. Mojo still uses the same plain reel seat as the old Premier, however the Mojo is more tuned as an actual ice fishing rod. The rear grip is now just shy of 5 1/2 inches compared to the Premier at 7 inches. This gives the Mojo more of a fishable rod, even being just near that 2' difference. Again it's because I choose the longest rod out of the stock on the retail shelf and these two Mojo rods measures at 34 1/2 in length.
Gone is the fore grip and finished with a cap on the real seat. The old Premier had a 2 inch fore grip. Without the fore grip on the ice rod, your pointer finger can easily rest on the rod blank to allow direct contact and feel of subtle fish strikes. The line guides on the Mojo now has ceramic rings compared to the old Premier with stainless steel rings. The line guides are four plus tip and positioning is still the same as with the old Premiere.
Since I had an original custom made Thorne Bros baitcasting rod years before St Croix made these baitcasting ice fishing rods, I have a good baseline for what I'm comparing. My original is a 32" Walleye Sweetheart blank where I had two built in M and MH power. 5" rear grip and 1 1/2" fore grip. I had Fuji Alconite line guides on mine with four line guides plus tip. What I find amazing is how the line guide spacing position of the St Croix retail rods basically matches the line guides in spacing position on my custom bait casting rods. My custom Thorn has a 2 1/2", 2 3/4", 3 1/2", 4 3/4" line guide spacing measured at the rings. The Mojo has a line guide spacing from tip, 2", 3", 4", 5" appears to be just a general increasing guide spacing, but it works.
The rod flex on the MH Mojo is just a slight softer than the MH Premier. The bend load is 99 percent identical. On my original MH Thorne Bros, it's about 95 percent or more similar. It's just a touch more stiff.
Now the St Croix Mojo and Premiere has hook keeper on the bottom side of the rod. In my experience, I find this to be problematic. First thing is that the hook keeper will catch onto things where ever you set the rod down or put it in storage. Second if you have a lure on it, that hook point is more likely to poke into something. Third, if you're ever stripping line off while lure dropping, the line will sag and get caught up on that hook keeper. If having lure's of 1/4 oz or heavier, it's not an issue as since lure is heavy enough to pull line with enough tension. On my original custom, I have the hook keeper offset on the right side. I am a right handle cranker, and it's my preference.