As a guide, I feed 3 handfuls of maggots every 20 minutes or so until the light begins to fade when I increase the frequency to every 10 minutes. This means that I get through about 3 pints of maggots in a 4 to 5 hour session, which may seem a lot on a stillwater, but I can assure you it works. The maggots are always flavoured and I've found spicy flavours very successful, especially Archie Braddock's Exotic powder and the soon to be released Perch Magic liquid. Another excellent liquid is Rod Hutchinson's Savoury Sense Appeal. There is no doubt in my mind that for short range perching you can't beat float tackle.
Float fishing has two big advantages.
Firstly, it minimises resistance. Secondly, it means that the bait can easily be twitched. This is particularly important when fishing worm, which as already mentioned I don't find very successful on commercial carp waters so will leave to a future article. However, there are two major differences in my presentation compared with the textbooks. The first is that because I've concentrated the silver fish on the bottom I usually also fish my baits on the bottom.