Were a lot of people using waterdogs for bait back then?

I'd say that c-rigs probably accounted for most of them

One here and there.

quite a bit
most every fish that comes aboard I check its throat
for a hook ,see just as many passing hook or piece of plastic out the other end always clean them out ,they give you the thank you look as they are swimming away
funny haven't caught any with a crankbait left .....

Caught on today in 20 foot of water that jumped and spit out a pink trick worm. Pretty cool!

lol. Let me know if you find a couple of really nice bass with my crankbait hanging out of its mouth. Those things get expensive.

Wife caught about a 2 pounder last week that still had the carolina rig...hook deep in her throat, line, worm, and swivel hanging out its mouth. The hook was deep in the bass's throat so we could not help. We cut the line off it so she was not dragging a plastic worm everywhere and released her. She was snake poor. I have always heard to leave the hook in the throat...that the fishes acid will disolve it but this poor thing was going to starve I think before that hook dissolved. Oh well...either she survived or became part of the circle of life (Lion King).

Next time I will try what the above article suggest to remove a throat/gullet hook and maybe all will end better.

Caught this one last night. Brush hog is mine, wiggle wart bonus. Fished just several times and couldn't figure out what the rattling noise was from. Should have weight b/t 4 1/2 and 5 lbs., might have actually weighed 2 1/2. Relieved her of all her problems and set her free. Hopefully she'll recover. Btw, that is the large size wiggle wart to give you an idea of how big her head is.

Yes

Not to long ago we were at Texoma and i hooked into a fish when i got it in, it had a shakey-head in its throat. For whatever reason when I pulled on it, it came right out the hook didnt even catch the throat, i guess it was his lucky day.

I caught a SMB in Nebraska last year that was passing a hook and I pulled it out. I have also caught a couple of fish with hooks stuck in its mouth and since I caught them it meant they could eat.

I caught a 4 pounder with a white spinnerbait stuck in the roof of its mouth. But the strangest was at Palestine when I caught a 3 pounder that had a metal stringer in it's bottom lip. It was on the bottom hook.

Caught a fish on O.H. Ivie this past weekend with a pink fluke and a watermelon red lizard just sitting in her mouth, no hooks.

Caught a fish on amistad last year that had a hook and powerbait crawl. It was starting to stink pretty bad.