http://hellbenders.sanwalddesigns.com/
DonO, funny you should mention Hellbenders, when I use to trout fish with worms I had the "privilage" of catching one of these super slimey critters. Scared the dickens out of me because I had no idea what it was. An older gentleman had seen what was one the end of my line as well as the startled look on my face and offered his assistance, he turned out to be an amature amphibian expert. He waded into the stream with me and genlty took ahold of the Hellbender and asked me for my pliers, which I do beleive DonO did invent, he slid them carefully into it's mouth and removed the hook. He produced a cloth tape measure from his front breast pocket and measured the Hellbender, it was almost 16 inches in length, had a dark clay color with blackish spots and he also said it was a large female. Anyway this incident happend about 4 years ago and since then I have seen only two other Hellbenders in that stream, thankfully they ware not on the end of someones fishline.
Bart
