Rawthumb, that method made it's way from England, to Canada and now, is poopular in the US.
I live in near steelhead alley and there's a lot of guys that pin these streams and rivers. I have a number of friends who are into pinning and it's probably the most effective way to dead drift, bait or flies. Most of the guys I know use egg sacks and skein but a number of them do use flies, jigs etc., The key is, the natural drift that they get.
They use rods, generally in the 11'-13' range, which allows them to keep all their line off the surface of the water. The reels are extremely smooth, loaded with ball bearings and free spool, as their float, draws line downstream. They usually run backing line (same as we use) and then run X number of yards of mono and then, usually a fluro lead, which is attached by a barrel swivel. They use the float and a series of split shot, below the float, that forces their bait/fly into a right angle drift. They can also drift, huge distances, without having to retrieve.