First, welcome! Glad to have another coming into the sport.
I would probably suggest a 5 or 6 weight for what you are going after, but I'm making an assumption that you are in the 2-3lb or under range. There are alot of very inexpensive combos out there, but I would recommend staying away from the $20-30 combos and pick up something that has a little better reel and line if you can afford it. Check out Bass Pro, Gander Mountain and Cabelas for their full outfits. I have some of their older stuff, and it has been good servicable tackle. I haven't bought anything off the rack since I started building my own, but I know that Cabelas blanks are good blanks for the money and I don't know that there are any there that I would be scared of. I wouldn't get carried away looking at super high modulus stuff right away. It is a bit more sensitive to abuse, and you are bound to mis-use it a little while you are learning to cast. Some of the high mod stuff has become so thin-walled, it gets very easy to bruise the graphite. IM6 would be more than acceptable in most cases, IMO, and it is fairly durable. In fact, I still perfer that in most of my rods.
