I grew up fishing small rivers (willapa bay tributaries) and use foats down there guit a bit. Just plain old float and jig is deadly on these rivers. In fact, many times on small rivers I have hooked fish in spots that i know were 8 - 10 feet when I had the float set at about 4 feet. these are especially deadly in the slower froggy runs on small streams.
In this area I used to concentrate on the smaller rivers (N Fork Sky, Sultan, Raging and the Tolt back when you could access the river) much more and did well with floats and jigs. It can be effective to follow somebody on a stretch with jigs and floats on small rivers if you know the person before you was fishing bait.
I hope this helps,