outdoorsohio.com/joe

An avid outdoorsman, Thomas has been a very big kid in Ohio's expansive candy store of outdoor fun. He has planted himself in the middle of the Buckeye outdoor scene, having his agent propose to Sports Time Ohio, the Cleveland Indians baseball network, that Thomas join D'Arcy as co-host for the third season of the Outdoors Ohio television show. The new shows featuring Thomas debut on May 6.
"It's certainly not a job," said Thomas, flashing an award-winning smile. "It's been a ball, fishing and hunting in front of the cameras. The outdoor opportunities in Ohio are varied and vast, and the people I've met around Cleveland have been outstanding."

Everyone knew Thomas as an outdoorsman long before he and his wife, Annie, made the Cleveland scene. While the majority of the top prospects in the 2007 NFL draft were in New York, ready to take the stage, No. 3 overall pick Thomas was noticeably absent.
"I knew I was going to go high (in the draft). Going fishing on Lake Michigan with my father on draft day was far more important to me," said Thomas. "We have a long tradition of salmon fishing together. He's the man who introduced me to the outdoors, and he is the guy who's kept me grounded."

"I was so nervous before shooting a shotgun for the first time that I was shaking," said Annie. "Joe calmed me down, and I was thrilled when I broke my first clay target."
Thomas wasn't surprised at all.
"Annie is a tremendous athlete, with exceptional eye-hand coordination," said Thomas, as we cruised the sporting clays stations with club manager Shawn Spindel, eight-time Ohio sporting clays champion, Bill Mayer of Massillon and veteran instructor Rick Reiss of Wadsworth.
Eric Thomas, a Milwaukee banker, created an angler when he taught his son to cast and took him fishing at just two years of age.
"Joe's grandparents have a cottage on a small lake in Wisconsin, and a pontoon boat." he said. "When it was time to go fishing, Joe would get excited and flap his arms. He'd climb aboard the boat, sit in the captain's chair and yell 'Start the boat!' That was his first multiple-word sentence!"
Joe's father is surprised at how the story of draft day has grown, and that people recognize him, as well as his son.
"I travel the country as a banker, and in the Cleveland area I've had people recognize me because of the television coverage of draft day that included Joe and I going fishing," he said. "I was really stunned, though, when two guys walked past me while I was having dinner in Orlando, Fla. They stopped, whispered, and came to my table.
"Were you the guy who took his kid fishing on draft day?" they asked. "I told them it was Joe's decision, that he didn't want to wear that monkey suit in New York, anyway."

As a youngster, young Joe never needed to be prodded to head outdoors.
"He'd pop out of bed, ready to go even at 3 a.m., and never complained about a 10 hour drive to get to the lake," said Eric Thomas. "He was a kid who thoroughly enjoyed the outdoors and would make the sacrifices."
Eric Thomas still takes youngsters, including church and school groups, to the Boundary Waters Area in northern Minnesota for summer wilderness adventures. Most city kids have never experienced the wilderness, he said, and the trips open a new world for them.
The family did not own a big cruiser for Lake Michigan outings.
"Dad had a little 17-foot boat, so when the waves were over two feet high, we'd be sitting on shore," said Thomas, with a laugh. "He was pretty focused, wanting to catch as many salmon as the local charter captains, and did pretty darned good. When I was 12, I won a salmon tournament with a 24-pound king salmon."
As a kid, Thomas and his buddies used to prowl the outdoors around Brookfield, Wisc., a Milwaukee suburb.
"One of my best buddies, Kyle Mars, and I used to sneak into a local quarry and go fishing," said Thomas. "We were the hard-core anglers in our neighborhood."
Thomas's favorite college memory was of a summer spent with four teammates in an apartment on Lake Menodata in Madison, Wisc., They bought a leaky, old rowboat and enjoyed many sunny, summer afternoons casting for panfish and smallmouth bass.
"When the water level inside the leaky boat got too high, we knew it was time to head in," said Thomas.

Thomas has degrees in business and real estate from the University of Wisconsin. They won't figure in his immediate future.
"Football is my job right now, and I'm so happy to be playing for the Cleveland Browns," said Thomas. "I've got some great teammates, and we're finding success. With the new additions to the team, we're going to have a great season."
Hunting and fishing come next.
"I'm having a lot of fun co-hosting the Outdoors Ohio television show. Outdoor TV is something I really wanted to do after graduation," said Thomas. "I want to spend as much time outdoors as I can before settling down some day to a desk job. The show has been a tremendous way to experience the great fishing and hunting around Ohio."
This weekend, spring turkey hunting is on Thomas's mind, and not in Ohio. He's joined a small flock of Browns teammates to hunt turkeys on a broad spread of Texas turf owned by fellow lineman Ryan Tucker.
"It'll be a few days of Texas brisket, barbecue and birds," said Thomas. He has turkey trips in West Virginia and Ohio planned for the coming weeks, admitting he's already hooked on the thrill of calling in a strutting gobbler during the spring turkey hunting season.
Wisconsin is noted for its white-tailed deer hunting, but football usually kept Thomas out of the woods.
"I began hunting for deer as a senior in high school, and snuck off a few times to hunt for deer while in college," said Thomas, "but the training schedule didn't allow for much hunting. I never could get out when deer hunting was best."
Thomas is an avid bowhunter. When he headed to Omaha to receive the 61st annual Outland Trophy in 2006 as college's top interior lineman, a stop at Cabela's, a hunting outfitter, was a must. Thomas stopped at the archery range, said his father, and plunked a trio of arrows at a target, hitting the bull's-eye each time. And when his wife, Annie, gave it a try, she matched her husband's marksmanship with a compound bow.
"The Cabela's employees were all watching, and were amazed at how they both shot a bow," said Joe's dad. "After Annie shot, Joe wanted to try to split one of her arrows!"

At a bird dog training session at the South Cuyahoga Sportsmen's Association grounds in Western Medina County recently, Thomas and Browns quarterback Derek Anderson were in stitches when Maddie inhaled a snoot full of pheasant scent for the first time. The pup insisted on wrestling with the mature ringneck pheasant Thomas had bagged on the training grounds.
"I think she's pretty birdy," said the proud owner, delighted with his pick of a well-bred litter.
Thomas is a young man who can't wait to set the hook on a Lake Erie walleye swimming around Gull Reef this summer, fool a smallmouth bass with a tube jig and draw his bow on a trophy Buckeye white-tailed deer. He knows it's just around the corner. But he's not willing to predict playoffs or a Super Bowl, at least not just yet.

Annie Thomas has gotten into the television act, as well. A four-year starter on the Wisconsin basketball team and an assistant coach of the Cleveland State University women's squad, she had never fired a gun before a Wednesday outing at George Klein's prestigious Hill'n Dale Club in Medina, which hosts state and national sporting clays tournaments. With Dawn Warner teaching Annie shotgunning techniques, the tall sportswoman quickly overcame a fear of noisy firearms.