I haven't used my livewell except for an occasional tournament for years. I use a cooler filled with ice and actually prefer it to using a livewell. With the laws how they are now, it's illegal to transport fish home in a livewell filled with lake/river water anyway. Most of the places I fish don't have cleaning stations at the ramps either so I'd have to put my fish in a cooler anyway. I tried the ice in bottles thing for a while but found that it works better for me to freeze blocks of ice in a freezer that I have in my quonset where I store my boat and put them in my fish cooler when I hook up my boat to go fishing. I freeze about 5 gallons of water in about one gallon size blocks using dollar store plastic basins. The blocks pop right out of them. I line the bottom the fish cooler with blacks and break a block into smaller chunks with a hammer after I put the ice in the cooler. I also carry another cooler in my truck with more blocks of ice. When I get done fishing and while getting my boat ready for the trip home, I cover the fish in fish cooler with the additional ice until I get home.
I clean out my fish cooler with a brush after I clean my fish, tip it upside down to let it dry out and freeze more blocks of ice so that everything is ready to go for my next fishing trip.
I don't use high dollar coolers but one thing that I did that really seems to improve cheaper coolers is to drill holes in the inside of the covers and fill them with spray in foam insulation.
