Another thing that will "kill" your bait, is have too much in the live well. This is especially true for Shad.
After you put a bunch of Shad in the live well, they will regurgitate and you need to have a really good recirculation rate to "re-fresh" the water or they will start to die quickly.
If all you have in your live well is a drain hole, here is what should help. Get a piece of PVC pipe that will fit tight into the drain hole. Cut the pipe so that it will be a what height water level you want in the live well. Now drill a bunch of 1/4" dia holes in the top of the pipe. For the top of the "overflow" pipe, there needs to be something covering the end to keep your bait from escaping down the drain pipe. I drill some very small holes and use a fine wire to "fence" off the pipe to keep the bait in the live well.
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In my new boat [a year old now], the drain and overflow connections are smaller diameter than my other boat. This restricts the amount of water that will drain out of my live well. OR....limits me to how much "fresh" water I can add to the live well to keep the bait alive.
Maybe in the future, I will address this to improve my live well water flow. I use this pipe in the overflow outlet. When I tired it in the drain hole, a redfish can knock it loose and drain out all the water.
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