Onr quick anecdote asbout float coats/life vests: I swam the upper Kalama years ago in the fly water (took while to get my raft unstuck from a log all the way across the river). I was wearing a life jacket and it worked good except for a little heavy whitewater where nothing will keep your head up.

A few years later the Department of Fisheries bought all of us Fishcops mustang flotation suits. We tried them out that summer by having the Coast Guard take us out and letting us jump overboard by "A" jetty and letting us paddle to the beach. To my surprise the flotation in the legs of the suit floated you horizontally in the water instead of vertically like a life jacket does. With the flotation suit the waves broke over my head and it was not a comfortable feeling. It's very difficult to get you legs under you. So, I vastly prefer a life jacket and would NEVER wear a flotation suit for fishing out of a boat on a river.