Don't take me for an expert. But, I just bought a Centerpin outfit. You might want to go longer, 11.5 feet. You could go longer, but, you should be able to cover most waters both large and small with 11.5 feet.

Don't go braid. You're going go through a lot of line at first learning how to cast and and you really don't want to be throwing out 50 or 100 feet of braid after the end of the day. Mono will be fine. I have about 100 yards of backing and about 100 yards of mono on top of that.

BTW I bought a Raven Rod and Reel.

Don't worry about what your fly fishing buddies think. I don't think floating a egg pattern under a indicator is really fly fishing. I only say that because I like to fly fish too. To each his own.