I bought my first small cast net probably 2 years ago and yesterday decided I was going to finally break it out. Practiced a few throws in the yard and then went to the lake with my kids. The shad are super thick right now on my local lake and found a massive school right by the boat launch as soon as we put in. My first throw was terrible but still caught about 50 nice 3-5" threadfin. I dropped them in the floor of my jon boat and put a couple dozen in my minnow bucket and tossed the rest back. I know shad are finicky and not very tough but they started keeling over after just 10 min or so. I replaced the water and most somewhat revitalized temporarily but then started turning over pretty quick. I've done some research lately on netting and keeping shad as I would like to get more into using them as live bait for largemouth, cats, and striper but I'm not anywhere close to ready to pull the trigger on a legit bait tank. My boat is a 1648 flatbottom with no livewell - I typically put eating fish straight on ice and I do have a ~50 qt cooler with a recirculating pump and spray bar I can use as a traditional livewell. Any suggestions on how to keep shad I net given what I currently have to work with? A lot of what I saw online for the guys with bait tanks said they would drop the shad out of the cast net into their boats livewell for a few minutes while they shed scales and then transfer to the bait tank which has current and additives. I can get salt and other additives but I can't create current with what I have nor do I have a good setup to let them shed scales in first. I saw a neat video on Youtube where a guy made a bait tank out of a cooler and made a copycat version of the Striper Soup bait tanks filtration system which I may try to build. It makes some current (best as can I guess for a rectangular type cooler) and then has a Danco air infuser for oxygen and a multi layer filter standpipe system to really do a good job. Only issue is still no separate livewell to put them in straight from the lake. Maybe that isn't as necessary as some seem to make it out to be though.