BassinLou

Nonetheless, it was nice fish. Now that you bought two scales hopefully you will not be caught in that predicament again. The good news however, since you have new scales. You will start to develop any eye for fish weights now. From now on,  your fish weight perspective will definitely change. Congrats on the catch. 

Eh... Stick with nickle. They don't chip like the red hooks. when they do they turn gold. 

Based on the 2 applications you are going to be throwing. I would recommend Yozuri hybrid, 15lb. It's very tough line and its economical. I think its still on sale at TW. Although I prefer braid for frogging, yozuri is a good line to start learning with. Once you become proficient at handling your reel, I would transition to braid. Good luck..

Hootie just slide it over to the "on" position. Use a little bit of force with your nail and you will see and hear the slide and click

7'6" H rod for sure. Many enjoy the Lews superduty, I personally went the TT pro route for those exact applications minus the frogging and I am really enjoying this reel for those techniques. 

I have the Lews reels and that happens to me when I am using braid. Its not the reel. The braid dug in deep caused the spool to stop in its tracks. 

It depends on what the application that setup is going to be used for. I would use if it was my set up, 12lb.-15lb  Yozuri max.