The MeatEater Podcast - Ep. 210: Josh Carney on the Presence of a Feather

Episode Date: March 2, 2020

Steven Rinella talks with Josh Carney, Ryan Callaghan, and Phil Taylor.Topics discussed: How Josh is mean to Steve about his turkey calling; putting a rasp on it; living in town with 15 hunting dogs; skinning raccoons; a small game family; how turkey hunting is like dating at a bar; a 2 at 10 and a 10 at 2; not being tuned into hunting and fishing laws; what it feels like to be hit by buckshot; how it can all be taken away in a moment; dying on the operating table, twice; how you don't know who you are until you're absolutely alone; battling with God; getting so nervous you goose honk at Jim Shockey; the "Son of the South" and a crisis of identities; is the hunting industry sexualized?; and so much more. Connect with Steve and MeatEaterSteve on Instagram and TwitterMeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and YoutubeShop MeatEater Merch Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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all right uh josh carney the first thing we got to talk about um you're 28 years old and you're here on my birthday today i turned 46 and you're the first thing you're gonna do is tell me um about how i suck at turkey kong oh we're jumping right to this dude no yeah i want to just clear the air on it i listen i i yeah i reckon i i never um yeah just tell me about it just hit me just hit me hit me i'm up because it's my birthday so hit me back down again man just give me a good formal critique like i'm uh uh like what am i what What areas should I most strive to improve? Man, I just don't want to break your heart.

This is the first. No, do it. Break it up. If you're going to give me, just try to make it seem like you're not being mean, but like you're being helpful. Okay. Your turkey call is not supposed to sound like a drowning duck in a pool of sewage. Yeah. Okay.

That's helpful. That's helpful. Yeah. I mean, I'm just trying to help you out. I mean, if you're going sea duck hunting, that's appropriate. But when you're turkey calling, you know, just it's cluck, cluck, purr. Hit me with a beautiful turkey call. Oh, man.

Here we go. It's my style. Dude, I love it. With no assistance from calls whatsoever. Sans call. No diaphragms. No latex involved. No.

See, a turkey call company tried to, like, man, you're really good. Like, if I could sell you, I'd make a lot of money. I was like, I think this prostitution, human trafficking is not something I'm up for. You know, I didn't mean to hit you with this one when you came in, but I became interested in you and wanting to talk to you. That sounds a little creepy. Yeah, years ago, though.

So you're saying you should have been stalking me for a little while. No, I stumbled into you. And it was here. Right now, we're in Nashville, Tennessee. We're at the National Wild Turkey Federation Annual Convention, the big show. And years ago, I was here. And you were just like on the show floor. And there's a bunch of people gathered around.

And you were turkey calling. And I remember being like, how in the world does this guy do it without the assistance of a call? Like just to make the noise. And then I just did various bits of research and looked in and heard, you know, a story that you've probably by now, maybe you're sick of telling, but I'm going to make you tell it again and talk about your life after that. But explain a little bit. yeah but you know so 2005 well let me backtrack a little further than that so I always grew up funny like I mean I was my passion growing up and when I was a little kid my dad would take me rabbit hunting and just you know I fell in love with doing that so I want

to you can you grow it where in Louisiana South Louisiana where it's hot and every snake wants to kill you there it's it's a terrible place to live but you guys hunt cottontails down there yeah if you can avoid the cottonmouths it's uh it's a fun place to live but it's um for me you know growing up there i there was there wasn't as much variety to hunt as far as the other states. We had deer and duck hunting. I never got into duck hunting down there. But we had a certain amount of animals that we could hunt there. So I just kind of picked and chose what I could hunt.

So I grew up rabbit hunting. And then at the age of 11, I started doing research and I wanted to deer hunt. So at the age of 11 11 i went out by myself and took my dad's 30 out six and i killed my first deer from there by yourself yeah yeah i didn't even know what uh i killed a button buck and i didn't even know the difference at the time because i probably know until i seen the little nubs on the horn when i got to it so yeah that was a rush for me what else did you get what else did you guys hunt? Give me the full gamut of what you hunted in those years in southern Louisiana. For me, my whole family was a small game hunting family.

Rabbits, we had squirrel dogs. I actually had competition squirrel dogs. Oh, really? Cool. Yeah. We traveled the country with dogs to competitions. Did you guys have other tree-in dogs? Did you guys have raccoon dogs and stuff?

Yeah. My dad had hounds for raccoons, but I didn't want to stay up all night chasing behind a ring tail. I stuck to my squirrel dogs and my rabbit dogs. That was my passion. So you had, obviously, separate dogs, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So we had beagles for rabbit dogs.

We had original mountain curs for squirrel dogs, and I think he had, I think he started out with walkers. I think that's what he kept for coon houses, walkers. Did you guys live out in the country? No. Really? Definitely not the country, yeah. We were in the city.

Really? Yeah. Yeah, with about 15 dogs. And every neighbor you ran into hated you? I mean, we got hate mail twice a week. It wasn't bad bad but all the dogs probably because i was in the front yard skating raccoons or something like that you guys didn't fit in not technically i mean but it was uh it was one of those deals where you know

just growing up growing up back then compared to now was so much different. That was more acceptable. It wasn't as frowned upon back then. Yeah. But now if I try to do that now. You mean to be like a hunting family out skinning stuff out and whatnot? Yeah, yeah. No, that's now in today's society and generation, that's frowned upon terribly. Yeah.

You know, even like we live in southwest Montana, you know, and one of the guys we work in, in, uh, Southwest Montana, you know, and, um, one of the guys who worked with Seth, he had a, he had like a deadhead buck he found, you know, and, um,

he had it out in his yard and he could overhear the neighbors like aghast about this guy's got a deer head in his yard. And that's sort of disgusting. It's like, what the world, it's like, what in the world? It's Montana, man. You know? So, funny story that just actually happened last, what's it, Thursday? So, it happened Sunday.

So, I just moved from Tennessee. So, I got an apartment here. I was coming home Saturday night and I hit a deer. Okay? This is about to be a crazy story. So I hit this deer. And if people that listen don't know, I'm in a wheelchair. So on my truck, I have a lift to lift my chair on and off the truck.

So it snowed. The ground's wet. Everything like that. And I'm like, all right, well, I just hit this fresh deer. I'm not about to let it get a waste. So I pull inside the road. I back my truck up to put this deer in my truck. I thought I could lift it by myself.

Turns out I was very wrong. So you back up, but you're down. You get in your wheelchair, and you're down on the ground in your wheelchair. I get out of my truck in my chair. In your chair. Okay. Yeah, I'm in my chair. I'm in my chair.

So I roll around to this deer, and I'm trying to lift it up to put it in the bed of my truck. Huh. Okay. That didn't work out. Cars are blowing past? Actually, it was like, this is where it gets interesting. The road that I was on was closed, but it's where I lived. Oh, because of all the flooding around here.

I don't know why it was closed. Okay. I don't know why. I overheard somebody say that there's like six counties around Nashville that are closed right now, and I was thinking, how can you close an entire county? Yeah. It's been flooding pretty bad. But I don't know why the road was closed.

But like it was like only one lane that was closed. So I just kind of went around the side. Yeah. Which I probably shouldn't have done. So. I'm sympathetic. I understand. You know, my house was a mile away from there.

So, I mean, it's like I'm not driving all the way back around to any state to go do it. So, I'm trying to lift this deer up on the back of a truck. It doesn't work. So, nobody's coming by. So, it's by myself. So, I'm like, all right, well, I'm just going to use my lift on my truck to, like, hoist this deer up. Oh, that's a good thing. It's kind of like a crane.

Yeah. So, I was like, all right, I'm going to do that. So, I dragged the deer to the side of the truck, and I try and, like. Well, you wanted this deer bad. Listen, I just got a this deer bad. Listen, I had just, I just got a brand new truck. Okay.

And if I hit a deal with a brand new truck and like a damn, I'm going to get something out of it. So, I mean, I got to pay the insurance. It's going to be expensive deer. So I, uh,

I try and like pick the deer up enough to like get the, the rope around it. So I could put it on back of my truck, pick this deer up enough to like get the the rope around it so i could put it on back of my truck picked this deer up enough to like where um my body shifted and my chair rolled from up under me down the hill oh so now i'm sitting on the side of the road with a deer across my lap my chair is gone and uh i'm still trying to figure out how I'm going to do this. Soaking wet, by the way. The ground's wet. So I finally crawl back to my truck, get the lift, hook it up, and I get to the end of the truck. What I didn't realize is I needed the lift to get my chair on back of the truck.

So now I got a terrible situation. I finally get all that taken care of. Next day, this is going back to skating in the yard. The next day, a buddy of mine comes over and we're trying to figure out where we're going to clean his deer at. Literally,

we take it to my apartment through the house and skate it on the porch. That's good thinking. Yeah. If they hear this, I'm probably going to get evicted.

Yeah, your landlord right now is like, hold on, what's this dude's name? Yeah. I feel like I just rented this dude a place. By the way, my name is John Gervota. Yeah. Well, show me where it says that in the lease, you know? Yeah, yeah.

Was it a buck or a doe? It was a doe, a small doe. So you got it in the freezer? Oh, yeah. I i'm gonna have a it's probably in back straps this weekend you got a girlfriend no i do not no so you don't have anybody cooking for no and i can't cook worth of crap no i'm gonna burn 40 of his deer just to let you know that's all right so let's go back to when you were younger. Like you're 11 and you strike off and go figure out deer hunting. Yeah.

So I figured that out. And what kind of area are you hunting in? Like public land or you guys know people with properties? We had friends of my dad's. We would just go hunt on their place. Okay. And we'd hunt in the swamp sometimes. We'd hunt in a lot of pines in Louisiana where we were.

There's some hardwood timbers. But it just depends. Every hundred miles, the terrain changes a little bit. So you never know what you're going to get into. So after that, the next couple of years, I was like, all right, I'm really intrigued by deer hunting. So my dad had a cabinet shop. He's a carpenter. And he would go work a shop.

And while he was there, I'd go hunting. hunting like i go back behind place and go hunting um and then going a little further i uh came across turkey hunting magazine tv shows whatever however i found it and i was like okay cool i want a turkey hunt you know i want to hunt all year round so i want to go rabbit hunting morning deer hunting afternoon springtime i want turkey hunt. You know, I want to hunt all year round. So I want to go rabbit hunting in the morning, deer hunting in the afternoon, springtime, I want to turkey hunt. Yeah. So. And your old man wasn't a turkey hunter. No. No, nobody.

Like I said, my family was small game hunting. Like they didn't know anything about deer hunting, turkey hunting, none of that. Yeah. So I was like, all right, I'm going to get some books, you know, go Walmart, buy some calls, stuff like that, just to try and do it. So we get all that stuff taken care of, and we go turkey hunting one Sunday after church. And we're sitting there in the middle of the day, and I'm about 25, 30 yards away from my dad. And we start calling. And I'm an okay caller.

At this time, I was okay. And what kind of calls were you using back when you used to use calls? I think I had one of those pushbox calls. I think that's what I had. And I don't remember what my dad. I think my dad had a slate call. Whatever he had, it sounded so bad. It was the worst turkey call ever.

I'm like, I'm a bit better than your dad. It's a close race. It's a very close race. So, how this turkey came, like this is where I'm going to take credit from you because as bad as he called, a turkey still came in.

Yeah. Here's the thing, man. I want to clarify. I am deadly on turkeys. I get all kind of turkeys. I prove a point. Steve called in a turkey for me last spring. I prove a point by getting – I use my bad –

I use my poor calling. I time it. Everything. I time it. Everything else I do nice. And I drive around in my vehicle now calling to practice more. But we're not here to talk about my calling. So, you know, this is a theory I have about turkey hunting. Turkey hunting is like dating at a bar. Go on.

I like it already. I already agree. It's like going at a bar. Go on. I like it already. I already agree. It's like going to a bar. Like, the time that you want, you have to have like a high class call to get his attention. Okay. The later in the day. The drunker he gets. The worse your call can be, the more he's interested.

Yeah. Like I said, there's a 10 at 2 and a 2 at 10. Mm-hmm. That goes the same with turkey hunting. Yeah. You could sound like the worst hand in the woods. By 10 o'clock in the morning, he gets away from his hand. No matter after that, it's an easy bird to kill. If he gobbled, you could kill him.

Yeah, that's interesting because I do kill a lot of turkeys around 10 a.m. We were just talking about that. I like the way we said it better, though. You know? A 2 at 10 and a 10 at 2. You got to remember that.

Alright, so I want to keep tracking what happened uh what happened to get into into a transform in many levels of transformative accident that you get into turkey hunting are we on like the turkey hunt yeah this is a hunt like we uh my dad we go down this place we you and your this is a hunt. My dad, we go down to this place. You and your old man are hunting together. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So we go to a place where we rabbit hunt it. And I found, we're going down this gravel road.

I find a feather in the road. I was 100% sure that it was a turkey feather. Looking back at it now, I'm pretty sure it was a hawk feather. So I'm not sure there's turkeys on this place. So we go set up. Just based off the presence of a feather. I was 13, Steve. No, no, no. I'm not do there's turkeys on this place. So we go set up. Just based off the presence of a feather. I was 13, Steve. No, no, no.

I'm not dogging on it. I'm not dogging on it. I just want to make sure I'm understanding. You're not hearing gobbles and whatnot. No, no, no. It's like, I don't know, 10, 11 o'clock in the day. Yeah. First time, we're just going out there.

I think he just wanted to shut me up as a kid. That's all I talked about. Yeah, I got you. So we go out there and we get he just wanted to shut me up as a kid That's all I talked about. Yeah, so we go out there. We you know kid 25 30 yards apart from each other and he's sitting on one tree I'm sitting on another tree and we're calling back and forth and he had a 12 gauge double buck shots And I had a 14 and I'm not gonna lie. I think I had like a slug in here something like that Mm-hmm first turkey. I was like bigger than a chicken shoot a bigger load

Yeah, I mean, that, that was just my mindset. You guys just weren't tuned into the rules and whatnot. No. No. First turkey hunt. I'm not going to lie to you, Steve. Like, I did not do my research on this part. Yeah.

You were a kid, man. Yeah. It's just one of those things. Now I know. Because I never want to get shot by a long-range double-up buck. Yeah. I mean, I grew up. You know, there's a lot of – yeah.

When you're young, it's all kinds – you don't even need to apologize, man. When you're young, for a long time, you're just sort of reliant on the people around you. You're reliant on the people around you to know what's up and what you're supposed to do. And even when you know – I found that being young, even when you know stuff you're not supposed to do, if the older people around you do it, you took it as being that that's like how you would do it you know it's funny that you brought that up let's tell my buddy my other days like growing up as a kid like i didn't know what a no trespass sign was yeah you see woods i went hunting

i mean i was it's a different time period but i mean i didn't know what a no trespass sign was my old man would go down the road if someone had too many up he'd think it was kind of an eyesore and him his body eugene would go down they'd take him down that's just different different different generation man and then when you're young it's like you know you'd have to be pretty old to question your old man like you're with your own man i don't know I assume my old man knows what's going on. Yeah, I know. I knew that there was land and there was animals on it, and I wanted to go hunting. Yeah.

So we're calling, and a turkey comes behind the tree I was sitting on. Okay. And I could see my dad off to my left, and he's getting ready, and he don't see me. He don't see you because he didn't know where you went and set up. Well, I mean, I was wearing real tree camouflage. I mean, I'm blending with everything. Shout out to real tree for that. I'm just joking.

So he doesn't see me because, like I said, I'm tucked against a tree, and I think he's more focused on the bird. Yeah, yeah. And when he shoots, like before he shoots, like I can see him, like, put the gun up, and, like, I can see the whole, like before he shoots, like I can see him like put the gun up. And like I can see the whole, like everything going on. He puts the gun up. You see the turkey?

No, the turkey's behind me. I can't, so like. Oh, I understand now, man. I'm facing forward and he's to my left about 20 yards. Like I can't. I got you. The bird's behind me. He's aiming at a turkey behind you.

Yeah. But barely behind you. Yeah. So I just stay still on the tree because I know that something's there. So I just stay still. And I can look out of the corner of my eye, tilt my head just enough to see him, click the safety off, and pull the trigger. And I see fire.

My body goes numb, ringing in my ears, and I just can't do anything. My body goes completely numb. He runs over. He just can't do anything. My body goes completely numb. He runs over. He picks me up. He's carrying me out of the woods. I was like, Dad, you shot me. He's got 911 on the phone. He's carrying me out of the woods. EMS gets there and they put me in the back

of the truck. I was like, this is it. I'm done for. I was like, Lord, just protect my dad that's it How many of those buckshot pellets hit you? Seven I hit my esophagus My left arm

One hit my left arm Crossed my chest Two in my right arm I still have one in my pelvis Still have one in my right shoulder My lung and stomach arm. I still have one in my pelvis, still have one in my right shoulder. My lung and stomach. And one hit my spine

T1, T2 area. Where is that? It's upper like just right above the mid chest. One hit your spine. Yeah. And so that was your last lower body movement ever was that day yeah and then the thing is you know i was i was a point guard for basketball i was you know high up on the baseball

i mean i love baseball and basketball i mean i was had a pretty good athletic thing going on and uh yeah it's like that in a moment taken away so i uh i get to the aside from your general running around in the woods all the time from the sounds of it yeah yeah yeah i mean you had no you couldn't have had any idea what was going on i had no idea no i knew that i got shot that's all i knew and um you couldn't but you obviously you couldn't move no couldn't do anything. Like I had ringing in my ears, body completely numb. Huh.

I mean, it was pretty much like I was lifeless. I was just, I had enough energy to look. That's it. And what, your old man carried you, but he makes a call and just carries you out to where an ambulance can get to. Yeah. So I get into the back of the ambulance and uh i black out funny thing is i didn't know i could get blacker but i blacked out so i uh i wake up and there's this uh light this beautiful blonde lady she's like josh josh and i look there like you're an angel she's like no i'm your nurse it's like, Josh, Josh. And I looked at her like, you're an angel? She's like, no, I'm your nurse. I was like, dang, girl, I was trying to get your wing number.

What up? And from there, you know, the doctors came in and I had, I think I had 13 surgeries. And I died on the operating table twice. And I stayed in the hospital for, I want to say, three months. And they resuscitated you. Yeah. So 13 surgeries within that three months? Yeah.

It's crazy. I had my whole, like, under my chest, like from my stomach down, like past my belly button, cut open my back from the base of my neck all the way down to my pelvis is cut open um i have cuts down my side i mean i look like frankenstein just to be a clear vision of it and and were you um were you conscious for most of this time part of this time you know with the accident so when they transferred me from one hospital to another um i don't know how this happened but they dropped me on a helicopter so like on the like the gurney whenever transport me yeah they dropped me on a helicopter my head

hit the base of it and it it put a i don't know it messed my head up. So if I ever take my hat off, I have a big missing spot and a scar in the back of my head. So my memory is very bad from it. Really? Mm-hmm. So what's the state of your father while this is going on? I honestly couldn't tell you. I mean, I wasn't... I wasn't... I just couldn't tell you. I mean, I wasn't – I wasn't – I just can't.

Was it just your dad? Is your mom around too? My mom's around. My whole family's there. Okay. But, I mean, being in the hospital so long, I mean, I was on so much medication and, you know, the fact that I couldn't even remember stuff, I don't know. Oh, yeah, I got you.

So, you mean like during this month or three months, you don't know what your father's state was? No, I don't. You're just trying to stay alive. Yeah. I mean, I knew that I had people come visit me. I mean, I vaguely remember people coming to visit me. But other than that, I think I was so medicated that I slept most of it.

I mean, I just – either that or I've blocked it out mentally, and I just – I just, either that or I've blocked it out mentally. And I just, like I said, honestly, I don't know. So at what point did it become, there's kind of two transitions I'm curious about. What point did it become that you, that the dust settles and you know that probably, barring some kind of medical breakthrough that doesn't yet exist, you'd probably never walk again. When do you know that to be true?

And then how long goes by before you're ready to attack life again? So the doctors came in and said, you've been shot you know you're paralyzed you won't be able to walk again but it's i'm not fully paralyzed like the bullet it severed my spinal cord but it didn't cut it all the way okay so it's the body's super weird um so like i can like feel things i just can't walk oh i see but it's not like a normal touch. It's more like a tingling sensation. Okay.

So, like, for a spinal cord injury, I can't regulate my body temperature. So, if I get hot, it's like I'm, you know, about to pass out. And I stay cold all the time, even if it's like 70 degrees and the wind blows. Because of spinal cord injury, I just can't regulate my body temperature because it doesn't send those signals to my brain correctly. Really? That's something I've never thought about before. No, I didn't know.

So, I mean. I always think of it just being like a movement thing. I never think about it being like other functions of the nervous system. Yeah, it messes your whole body up. I mean, it just. Because, I mean, the nerves, it goes to your brain and it sends it back down to wherever. You know, even your fingers or like you want to move your legs, that all goes up your, you know. I guess it's like a railroad going back up to your brain you know just

if that if it's cut there's no signal you can't receive that so you just don't work do you are you able to um like like if you say you imagine you want to move your leg are you at this point remember what that felt like without thinking about it you'd go to move your leg and it would move do you still have the sense that you can make the impulse to do it but it just isn't answered

so have you ever heard of I think it's called phantom like phantom pains it's more like that, like phantom pains? Yeah. It's more like that. Okay. But I still have my limbs.

Yeah. So I can like feel it, but it doesn't really do anything. Yeah. So I guess like mentally it's there, but physically it's not. Yeah. So, and it's aggravating. It's very aggravating. Oh, I can only imagine. I know like when I first started doing therapy, I could have a little bit of movement in my feet.

Intentional movement. Yes. Yeah. But I guess being in a chair for so long, my muscles just tightened up so much that I don't know if it just doesn't. I don't know if my muscles are just, I don't know if it's my muscles are just too tight. They just can't get, the signal can't get in. I don't know. I don't understand it.

So it's just one of those deals where I just roll with it and keep going. Uh, okay. The second part, how, after your accident, you get clear about what your future is going to look like that you probably, it's probably hard to comprehend but how many months or years goes by before you sort of are like that you're back in like you're alive you're a human being here on earth there's shit you got to do right you're gonna like you got to resume school find a way to enjoy yourself like what is the gap like two weeks oh really i got out of the hospital and uh two weeks two weeks after we got the house whenever right back honey no shit yeah you gotta be tough you're stupid who did that decision making it was me so um the thing was

like i was being babied so much and i didn't like that you know and um it was just one of those deals where i just like look i don't want to be baby like that stuff happens like i'm not gonna be sit here and be someone's like burden and that's what i felt like i felt like a burden to my family's you know take care of me i mean i just my whole life just changed so um one day my mom was in the house i was like look I'm going hunting she's like what you're going hunting she was like I will finish killing you like you're not going hunting like so that day I made her very mad because I went back hunting in a wheelchair obviously so from that point I had to learn how to adapt I mean it's it's it was a hell of a challenge it still

is you know nowadays but going from like using your limbs and then like transferring to a chair and trying to figure out how to get across logs and rocks and stuff like that that's hard as hell like that's challenging but that challenge is what drives me like That's what makes me want to do more. If I see something that I can't do or I feel like it's not in the cards, that makes me insane. That makes me want to do it even more. So going out after the accident, that made my driving past your rear, honey, so much more.

This sounds like a dumb – maybe it's not a dumb question. I don't know if you can think about it this way. I know you were only 13 when you were injured, but what percentage of the places that you might normally have gone became just inaccessible to you? Oh, 96%. Okay. So you were off stomping through%. Okay. So, major.

Yeah, yeah. So, you were off stomping through the swamp and... Oh, yeah, yeah. Oh, it's... I mean, honestly, like, I couldn't roll through the yard. I was going to ask, like, your home situation. Yeah. Like, did your dad have to do some serious carpentry work on the place? Yeah, so, I mean, I had to had to like get a ramp and like uh like everything

had to be modified okay i mean just i mean the house had stairs had to get a ramp or um widened bathroom doors or widened doors for um the bedroom or um making cabinets lower for me to get into and stuff like that i mean like everything at that moment changed mean, it's one of those things where you go from, you know, having a normal life to, like, I mean, it's pretty much having to depend on someone or have things accessible for you and your lifestyle. I mean, it just, like, in an instant, it just changed. You know? So, I mean, like I said, you know, daily activities, you know, if I just wanted to, you know, get mean like say your daily activities you

know if I just wanted to you know get up and go take shower whatever I mean it took me a lot longer to just to do that um like getting dressed I mean it may have taken me you know three minutes to get dressed normally I mean that transferred to 15 minutes you know just because just because I have to pretty much my arms are my crutch for my legs too. So it just makes things a lot harder. I think transferring from like my chair to a car or to a tub or to the bed, all that made it so much challenging. And then, like I said, 13 years old, I was a scrawny kid.

I didn't have much at all to throw my weight around. So, I mean, it made everything that much more challenging. What was – how was your dad doing? Like once it was clear that you were okay and you were ready to get back out, How was your dad doing? Once it was clear that you were okay and you were ready to get back out, was your dad just so guilt-ridden that he wasn't able to function? Or was he able to be a dad, to do a good job being a dad despite that guilt? Honestly, I really don't know i mean like once i started getting back into um the hunting side of things i think that it made him a little bit easier about the situation knowing

that i wasn't letting it stop me okay so i think that was like a settling point uh-huh i mean obviously i'm pretty sure you're in the back of his mind you know he's like okay well you know this is you know because of me um i mean i'm pretty sure he had guilt for that but that time period i just i just don't remember that much do you think like looking back on it do you think that um for a dad in a situation like that do you think it's better for the dad to just carry on and be strong or do you or do you think uh someone wants to see the guilt honestly i don't i mean it's life life happens i mean no you you have no control of the cards so holding yourself at blame and being guilty or having that guilty conscience about it

I mean of course you're going to think about it it's going to be in the back of your head and all that stuff that's life you're a human that's what's going to happen but I think guilt will drive you to an early grave if you let it and I think him seeing me uh push

forward and not letting it get a hold of me yeah made him a lot stronger oh that's interesting when you're looking at it yeah did what was your feeling about you'd been injured by a firearm but i mean you started hunting right away you didn't have any sort of like you didn't have um fear of or anger toward toting a shotgun around the woods like you didn't look at it like man that's the thing that almost took my life actually i did i kind of had like a honestly still to this day i'm very weary around some certain firearms yeah i um that's why i love bow hunting so much i mean it's just okay i've got to bow hunting i think it's like 15 16 and i love bow hunting so much i mean it's just okay i've got to bow hunting i think it's like 15 16 and i just really stuck with it i mean i don't trust a lot of people

guns yeah it's not it's not that it's not the fact that i don't trust them it's just the fact that it's it's a man-made item and anything can go wrong anytime yeah so i mean i guess i kind of have a little bit of ptsd towards it but that's understandable i mean yeah i could also understand you said and i never went in the woods again yeah no but i um like even i'll i'll carry i'll shoot an animal to rifle me that doesn't bother me but still at certain points like it's just i just i have that ptsd they just like that that mental image is in my head i just you know sometimes it freaks me out more than anything hey folks exciting news for those who live or hunt in canada and boy my goodness do we hear from the canadians whenever we do a raffle or a sweepstakes and our raffle and sweepstakes law makes it that they can't join our northern brothers

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Welcome to the OnX Club, y'all. Tell people about how you became interested in turkey calling and realized that somehow your injury manifested in such a way that you were able to

have this super special talent oh that's easy i didn't have friends growing up yeah i'm just joking so um well i didn't know if you could tell me that your friends bailed on you because you were in a wheelchair i don't know no uh 50 50 okay um thin the herd a little bit yeah yeah so uh in high school like i was like like the cafeteria is like half a mile from the school it's like i had to get people to like push me down to the uh cafeteria and stuff like that it just became a pain like i felt like i was such a bird to like my friends family so i just i think my high school years started making me very independent and I'm grateful for that like really yeah, I'm super grateful for that. Um Because the fact is like I live by it's quite like you don't know who you are as a person until you were absolutely alone

and you know, I was I Guess I was comfortable Being independent or like depending on someone. Uh- someone until I didn't have that someone. And then figuring out who I was as a person and leaning on myself more, becoming more independent, made me truly – I don't know. It made me super interested in myself, my capabilities, what me tick, like what's my passion, what drives me. And I think that's what those high school years did to me. Yeah. Because, I mean, I had friends, but I had to fend for myself.

Yeah. Heck, my friends would go to lunch and just, you know, it's like, oh, well, you know, we forgot about Josh. And I'm like, all right, cool. I'm sitting here waiting on somebody to help me with lunch you know it's already an hour past and i still ain't eating so you know i just it it it built me it started building my character um so i'm appreciative of that oh but man i could imagine that just by no fault of your own it could just as easily destroy your character, man. Some people. I don't mean you. Yeah, yeah, no, I agree.

But you could see a person becoming just like, sociopathic's not the right word because it has such a, I guess just like losing faith in people. Yeah, so, I mean, I was, you know, early on in my years, I was at that point. Like, I was in such a bad place i was you know i felt like i was a burden to everybody i mean i've contemplated suicide i mean i went through that whole route of depression but having a mindset of you know god left me here for a reason and i

battle with god i'm not gonna sit here a lot to you i mean i was like you know you say you love your child why would you do this to me? Like, what were you thinking? Like, I had my battles. You know, I faced my demons, and I've been down that route. But, you know, being able to appreciate the little things in life makes it so much better as you keep going. Cherishing those moments.

I mean, and I think that's what got me through my darkest times was realizing that even though I lost my legs, I still had so much more. Just being able to sit back and be like, okay, I still have life. I still can breathe. I still can do

what I want to do even though I have to do it a little bit different. It's not worth me committing suicide or taking myself away from my family, even though I felt like that was a better way. It's just an exit plan. But it's not a good exit plan. When you thought about suicide,

were you imagining that it's um that it takes you out of it like it takes you out of yourself are you imagining it takes you away from all the people that you don't want to be that you don't want to feel like a burden to like who are you doing a favor to you or your family for me i felt like it was more of a favor to my family yeah like suicide would have been that. Yeah. Yeah. But, I mean, still, like, just obviously, like, intense depression. Oh, yeah, yeah. Super intense depression. Like, I was, because, like I said, I mean, I had to depend so much on other people, and they had to go out of their ways just to make sure that I was doing something or, like, I was better.

Like, I had to take medicine or, like, whatever the situation was. I felt like I was such a burden had to take medicine or like whatever the situation was i felt like i was such a burden on other people that it made me miserable it ate me up inside well just the the thinking of like you know you said it well now it's an extra 15 minutes to get dressed and it's an extra 10 minutes to do this and extra this much time and this much time just and then to and that's just to navigate normal everyday life yeah and then be like but i'm also going to try to still hunt it's just like the layers of complication it just had to have been so daunting early early on especially you know yeah i remember

the writer jim harrison who we talked about a fair bit um he used to suffer from horrible depressions and he described one time being in such a state of depression that it was like he couldn't picture getting dried off with a towel after getting out of it. It just seemed like too much of a hassle. And he talked about a friend of his one time demonstrating a very quick, efficient way to dry off with a towel after the shower

and him trying to memorize how to do it. Because even that was just more than he wanted to deal with in that state. That's major depression right there. I mean, at least he took a shower. That's a plus side. Exactly. Absolutely. So talk about the turkey calling, man.

So with my accident, like, so I had a bullet hit my esophagus. I had a breathing tube in my throat for a very long time. And a doctor came in and said, well, you won't be able to talk again. You're going to need a trach. And when he told me that, I was like, you're wrong. No, I pulled, I actually pulled the tube out of my throat. And I told the doctor, I was like, no, you're wrong. No, I actually pulled the tube out of my throat, and I told the doctor, I was like, no, you're wrong. And when I did that...

So he thought you could talk, but they're going to do something to you that will make it that you can't talk. The breathing tube was in my throat for so long that it damaged my vocal cords. So I was going to need a trach. I was going to have to talk with the... Oh, I'm with you now. I got you. I got you. I understand.

And this is just like an accepted dude it's Louisiana our medical studies is not that great yes was just like oh you know yeah yeah had you listened to him that's what would happen yeah yeah so I just I guess it was like itching or whatever it's I So I pulled this dang old tube out of my throat, and it altered my vocal cords. Oh, pulling the tube out did? Yeah. Yeah. So I had to go through voice therapy after that.

And being 13, my vocal cords never really matured. Yeah, but I wouldn't get that. I mean, sitting here talking to you now, I wouldn't get that sense. Yeah. My vocal cords never really matured. So I don't really, I guess I don't even really know what that means,

man. Cause I mean, I've like anyone listening right now, anyone listening right now, they wouldn't be like, wow, it's not like, it's not like,

you know, I'm trying to think it's not like talking to a kid. So, okay. So, so you bring that point up. not like, you know, I'm trying to think. It's not like talking to a kid. So, okay, so you're bringing that point up. So, like, I don't sound like a kid, but I can still hit a very higher pitch for my age or whatever because when I have my, like I said, my vocal cords never fully matured because I had a tube in my throat and it altered my vocal

cords. I'm with you. I'm with you. So that's why I can go from like talking now to like a freaking screaming elk bugle. I mean, just because those vocal cords never really matured and I can hit notes like a soprano. Give me an example of a high note.

We're going to get kicked out of here, but all right. I can take Xanafone off. Here we go. All right, you want a speckle belly or you want an elk? I want a speckle belly and an elk. Speckle belly. Oh, yeah. So is this like a thing you realized, or did you just start learning how to make turkey calls?

So I think what year was it? 2000 Summer of 2013 I went to an outdoor expo show in Louisiana and this guy was trying to sell me a turkey call. And I was like, no, I don't want to buy a turkey call.

Obviously I didn't want to buy a turkey call. I've been shot turkey hunting. That was not a thing for me. You're like, I'm taking a break from turkey hunting. Yeah. You better be a hell of a salesman. Yeah. He was trying to sell me this call.

It sounded terrible. Me being like, I don't think a lot. I grew up playing sports. I was point guard, pitcher, all that. I was a little cocky when I was younger. This guy was trying to sell me this turkey call. He was playing. I was like, dude,, all that. So I was a little cocky when I was younger. So this guy was like trying to sell me his third call. He was playing. I was like, dude, it's like, that don't sound that good.

He said, what kind of call do you use? Me being a kid, a little cocky kid. I was like, I can do it in my mouth. Had no idea I could do it. No idea. He was like, well, let's hear it. I'm like, crap. This guy called me out of a bluff.

And I was like, all right, do it again. And he did it and i did the best that i could to mimic it the owner of the company turned around and said is that our call he's like no that's a kid really and he ran me away from the booth really yep so i went to a inside inside of the expo and uh another guy was like hey that's pretty cool like i feel like i just accomplished so i'm going around you know practicing tuning it up because i mean i just got ran away from a turkey collar booth because i sounded good and like a guy noticed it he's like

it sounds pretty good like what else can you do i don't know i just learned this 10 minutes ago so um you know people start giving me like oh that's cool like can you do this animal or this animal this now like i don't know so i started like youtube and animal sounds okay and i just like would practice it but the way that i'd break it down is i would get an animal, figure out what sound it makes, and put it to the closest word. And I'd break that word down until it gets to that sound. And I just... What's your word for a turkey yelp? I think it's just yelp.

Okay. But it's like a... It's not a full yelp. So if I try and explain how to do a turkey call to someone, I would say it's not a full yelp so if i'm if i try and explain how to do a turkey call to someone yeah um i would say um uh it's yelp y-e-l-p then you go y-e-e-e-l-l-p help help help and then you extend that word but in the cadence of you want to have your at the end of you want your pitch to go just a little bit higher So you want to you know?

Flutter your your tongue just a little bit just to get that that full pitch out and Then once you get that down, you know, you just want to speed it up just a little bit So then I carry a little rasp on there too, man. So that's a part of the whole pulling tube out. So I can get to a raspy pitch or I can get to an older growl to it. I mean, I can throw three different turkey calls at it in a sequence. So at this point, you're starting to learn how to call,

but you're not out turkey hunting so you probably marry this with the turkey hunting pretty soon right and i'm just thinking like this is such a killer skill for a very specific crowd that you no longer associate with yeah so here's the deal here's the deal so like after this show like people are like okay well what else can you do it's like i don't know and like this is like when facebook was like becoming like i was getting to use facebook a little bit more okay like i said this is 2013 like i think i was still like 20 years old something like that so i was just learning about facebook and i think i was just driving down the road one day just being i don't know just being a dork and i was like turkeys is coming up and I did this video

and I posted and like people start sharing like oh dude like you sound pretty good like you're goofy but you sound pretty good and people start sharing like oh what else can you do I don't know and uh they're like well they had this this animal call challenge thing going on with Facebook because I made some sounds. And this is going towards the end of 2013. And then it got to the point where someone, a buddy of mine, noticed it. And he's like, hey, you need to come to ATA. I don't even know what ATA is. He's like, it's like a big Archie trade show.

I mean, everybody goes there. I'm like, okay, I'll see what I can do. I had no intention of going there. He thought you should go there to do what though and just i don't know i guess to hang out and call i don't know like i don't know he was like you just need to go it's like all right cool whatever i'll go but but i say that but i was shooting competition archery too so like i guess that's kind of what he was thinking so you were like okay so simultaneously the animal thing like you're hardcore shooting yeah it's like after my accident that drove me like further into wanting to do it more like my accident like it it put a fuel inside of me to want to do it more are you shooting against um like are you shooting against other

people who are in wheelchairs no you just shoot in general i'm shooting against everybody huh yeah so you got right back in there man yeah and so but this is competition archery like shooting targets yep 3d 3d asa shoots oh okay good yeah got it so so your body's like i don't want to derail you but your body's like hey man go to ata it's like yeah and you're like i don't know why but i will go yeah so and then uh i met another friend of mine uh uh curse and she was um she's like yeah i'm going to ata just to meet up here like because like i've met these people from making animal sounds on facebook i mean that's how i i've met these people it sounds yeah no no man looking back at it it sounds funny but i but I love it. The Facebook animal sound making crowd.

Yeah. I was like Dr. Doolittle online, but I talked to animals in a different way. It was like, all right, go to ATA and let's just meet up. All right, cool. I go. I meet my buddy Rob that invited me, hang out with him. Everything's fine. I named Kirsten.

She was like, hey, let's go around the show. I was like, all right, cool. So we're going down this aisle, and I see Jim Shockey. He's one of the only people I knew at the show. I see Jim Shockey, and I freak out and have a fangirl moment. Yeah, like big nine-foot-tall dude. Yeah. Cowboy hat.

Yeah. I freak out. I have a fangirl moment. So I was like, oh, my God, there's Jim Shockey. And she was like, do you and she was like do you want me to I think now he's busy He's got people around he's busy So just girl goes through the crowd like parts the crowd like Moses partner Red Sea and she's like hey Josh This is Jim Jim. This is Josh I'm so freaking scared like I don't say hey, I freaking goose honking Jim shocky my nerves took over so bad that I goose honk at this guy yeah and he was like did you just

honk at me he's like hey I guess I don't know that's what you say can I guess I don't know I was so nervous so he's like that was pretty good like what else can you do like can you make some other sounds so i just started like doing sounds and like somebody took out a cell phone and videoed it and uh it got posted on jim's page and got posted on eva's page and then like some other people are around and like they just saw me doing these sounds so like the whole show i was going around making calls for everybody and like that's how I got my start. Like I went from being nobody from South Louisiana to when I got home, like my social media exploded.

Like it got really weird, really quick. It just because I mean, because I'm from a small town, like I was I was that kid that was like, – it wasn't shelter, but I was in my own little world, especially coming from an accident and figuring out lifestyle. Now I'm in the public eye. Everybody wants to know who you are, what you do and stuff. That scared the hell out of me. I'm not even going to lie to you. It just was so different going from you know being from a small town and being exposed to the world and you know you get all these people from all over the places you

know sending you messages and things like that wanting to be friend you have no idea who they are yeah i got you so i mean it was it was a culture shock for me honestly and and it became like it became like a business for you for a while. Yeah. Explain that, though. Like what? What specifically did you want being paid to do? I honestly cannot, like, if someone wants to do this as a business plan, I cannot give you a guideline to do it. I will not recommend you go out, get shot.

There's no, like, Josh Carney path to business success. No, there's not. Honk at strangers. That's it. Well, I mean, it's a little weird nowadays, but I would not recommend that. But I was doing these interviews for radios and radio shows. Just like now, same stuff I'm asking you. Yeah, but I was doing it at these shows and like these just like now like same stuff I'm asking you yeah yeah but I was doing it

like at these shows and stuff like people contact me like hey like you know do you want to come do an event like you know

we heard your story like do you want to come speak at an event or wherever it's like my my first event was at a church in Crosshead, Arkansas

okay middle of nowhere I have to look I've never did public speaking in my life I don't know why you're calling me you got the wrong guy

I barely know how to make animal sounds I just learned that an hour ago but what were they wanting you to come do they wanted me to tell my story of how I overcame how I got from a hunting accident to getting over it and getting back into

hunting so that's what I did I stumbled my way and getting over it and getting back into hunting. Yeah. So that's what I did. I stumbled my way through that first show. But the good thing about it, I was funny. So I did comedy before I got to the hunting industry. Got you. So I was able to throw in a serious point,

cover it with a joke. So I always kept the audience's attention. So that right there is what kind of built me into getting into speaking. Got you. So this show here is my first, and after that, it went well.

So I was like, well, maybe I can do another one from there i just changed the little change style you know did things you tweaked the little things here and there and i got better at it and from there more people like hey do you want to come speak at an event do you want to come to a seminar do you want to come um host a disabled hunt like do you want to do more stuff yeah i'm like yeah who's managing all this for you i was doing it at the time i mean i was i was young dumb and i didn't i i was but you're doing paid gigs right i'm doing paid gigs but you're just you're just like here's my fee and you negotiate it and contract it. Honestly, at that time starting out, I had a really cheap fee because I didn't know what I was doing.

Yeah, sure. I had enough to like, hey, yeah, cover my gas, my expenses, feed me, and get me a hotel. I'll be there. I had no idea when it came to business. So I was like, all right, well, I'm doing enough of these shows for cheap. Let me start charging. So I was like, all right, cover my expenses, 500 bucks. I'll do it.

That became, all right, well, it's getting better now. I got a little money. I can go back home, have a little bit to play with. It's like, cool, I like that. From there, I started to develop, okay, well, I'm getting more work than the money. You know, I wasn't, I was doing good, but I was overworking myself. I mean, because I was on the road a lot.

I mean, I think 2015, I hit like 260 days on the road. No shit. Yeah. But all with hunting industry stuff yeah how much did it when you're doing this you're talking about all the time and i'm guilty right now because i'm interviewing you right now but how much did it become um like did it ever be did it ever get in your head where you sort of had a hard time that you'd separate you like as a fully formed person with like that you are like this embodiment of a story meaning that like you have like a narrative

you were injured horribly um you started hunting and you have this this gift to to do animal calls um and people just want you to be like, again and again and again and again. Tell me about that. Tell me about that. Tell me about that. Does that cause an identity crisis? Yeah. It actually does. Honestly, so going... It was super weird for me getting adjusted

to it. So I had to live two different lives. Like, when I was at events or shows or whatever i had to be son of the south like that's what i went by son of the south so i had a strictly show presence that i had to stick to but outside of it when i was like family friends like i was josh carney like i was just let's hang out, cut out. I'm myself.

But when I went to a show, I was in that strictly like that entertainment mode. Is it a requirement that you as, not Josh Carney, but you as the son of the South. Is it a requirement of the son of the South that the son of the South is in a good mood i'm always in a good way that's the thing though so you're able to do it yeah i'm always in a good mood like i mean like life has challenged me enough that i understand like bad things happen for a moment and you can't let it ruin a day yeah so i mean if something like bad happens once it's over with it's over with you know just keep moving forward i mean don't let 60 seconds of your day ruined the other 23 hours and 59 minutes dude i'll lose two weeks off 60 seconds and I don't know. I haven't been forged by fire, right?

Yeah. I mean, you just, it just, it, there's a lot of people like it takes a bigger person to do it. I think that's, that's where I'm at. I mean, like, I just don't let a lot of things bother me. I mean, something can always be worse. And I think being able to like, like over the years I've done things with events with like kids with like cancer like terminal illnesses and things like that I think that humbled me as a person like that truly humbled me

like I understand like I'm in a situation but there are people out there in worse situations I am and they're happy about it like they're grateful for what they have so if I was bitter because I can't use my legs, like that's selfish of me. So I mean, knowing that it could be worse is something that makes me more positive. So if I have a bad moment, I don't let it affect the rest of my day. Before we started recording, we had talked a little bit about you know your sort of view of of operating within the hunting industry yeah and you grew tired of it like what's sort of like define the hunting industry for me you know i mean and tell me like what it means to grow tired of it or want to move

beyond it because you went into you you do like a totally different line of work now yeah i'm totally different line of work so for me so the thing about the industry for me was, I had six years in it. I don't want to say I was, I'm going to be blunt, I was overworked, underpaid. When I went to a show, I was always someone's puppet. Do this, do that, do this this do that and like i never got a reward out of it you know i was like okay we're just gonna use you for like your social media or

like whatever you bring to the table and hell today if we don't want you we just don't want you you know you do xyz for us and we don't get you don't get anything out of the end of it. You know, doing that for so long, it made me really bitter towards the hunting industry. Okay. Because it was always give me, give me, give me, and I never got anything in return. Yeah. I mean, I met some good people along the way, but if it wasn't for speaking events that I was doing, I would have never made it in the industry. I mean, it broke me down financially mentally like physically like i was on the road so much trying to pursue this image that i had

built in the hunting industry just to stay afloat gotcha and like i was i was i was expected to do so much from the audience and from companies that wanted me to promote them for nothing. So that's where the whole persona of – But don't you think it was because of just lack of management? You know, that too. But so 2017 – I think that could happen to many, many people. Yeah. So 2017, I hired a business.

So let me backtrack. So when I was talking to you guys earlier, so I had a guy that was trying to be my manager. Okay. Credentialed or not credentialed? Let me just say he was a used car salesman, if that says anything. Okay. So he was a snake in the grass. So he wanted to be my manager, like very shady, chicey dude.

But at the time, I didn't know. I didn't know what management was. I was having fun. I was making a little bit of money here. And it got to the point where the things, like I was more of a token item for him to put money in his pocket. Yeah, I'm with you. So, learning that started burning a lot of bridges for me.

So, finally got rid of him, and I went back to doing things on my own. So, I met this girl, this lady, Heather Shepard, and she's my business partner. So, we met, she booked me for an event. It was her family event, and she booked me for an event it was her her family event and she booked me for it i mean from booking it to me getting there to the show's over everything was like to the t

okay um like i mean she's like hey josh you know you have to be at this place at this time you have to be here here your break breaks here you know everything was like to a t um i think at the end of the show i like her name went from heather to boss lady like i mean she was just strictly you know focused on making sure that everything was in line and right yeah so after that show um i approached like hey listen like i really don't know what the hell i'm doing and from seeing you work and how you um handle business i want you as a part of my team so she came on board with me uh i think in 2017 and um we've worked together flawlessly from there so she took over that management position for me so if someone wanted me to do a gig

or event, I pulled myself out of it. I'd introduce them to her. She'd take care of it. That became a lot better for me. But at that time when that's happening, I was already at the point where I was starting to get worn

out. And so like if it didn't fit criteria, I'm not going to drive from Louisiana to Wyoming just to go on a free trip for exposure. So just things like that. But as far as getting the sponsorship deals, I didn't understand that side of business. And she was so new to the industry at that time too that we were both learning so i don't think it at the time i think the way that we went about it

could have been done a lot better but i think it was a little too late for they also so at what point did you decide that, or let me put it this way, when you got burned out on sort of servicing the hunting industry and that community, did your interest in hunting go away as well? Like are you actively hunting right now? Are you just done with it? So 2018 was like my breaking point for the hunting industry. Okay.

I had, I want to say probably eight to ten sponsors. And like we had, like we were working, like so with me and Heather, we were working on contract agreements, making sure everything was like right for the following year to make sure everything went. So, this is sponsorships where they're giving you... Gear? No, this is monetary sponsorships. Like gear and cash. We're starting to make money now. We have agreements lined up.

Back to the other guy that was trying to be my manager, I did a hunt with him in Texas, him and another guy. They made a video of me. Obviously, I can't put my leg on a turkey to stop it from flopping. So I put my wheel on a turkey.

I mean, I'm not going to say a lot to you. I mean, that was, quote, unquote, my legs. So walk me through it. You shoot a turkey. Shoot a turkey. And this is all being filmed. Yeah. So I shoot a turkey. Shoot a turkey. And this is all being filmed. Yeah.

So I shoot a turkey. Turkey's on the ground. And we're doing the B-roll and stuff like that. And they wanted to make a video of me. The whole storyline for this episode was me conquering, getting over a turkey hunting accident, getting back to turkey hunting. Okay. That was the whole storyline. Which is a story you're familiar with. Yeah was gonna say yeah yeah so after kill the star after shoots turkey like they're doing a film and everything like that birds on the ground they're like okay

well you know just like now you're in a wheelchair like this is the mindset you're in a wheelchair because of turkey hunting like now we want to make it look like you conquered, you know, this, like you just slayed the dragon. So like, all right, you know, just like, just put your wheel on the turkey's head. Like you just like defeated it. Okay. I don't know. This is like my first big like TV show deal. Oh yeah, man.

I just, seeing where this is going, you get – it's so easy to get steamrolled. Yeah. Because you're with all these people, and they know what – Yeah. And you're not familiar with – you don't know – you don't understand the end product. I had no idea. But the end product is like – that's what I'm getting to. So it was like – it wasn't even like a terrible shot.

It was just my wheel on a turkey. I mean, I see people with their foots on their neck. I just had a wheel on it. It wasn't even a turkey. The worst thing I did, I shot him in the face. That's the worst thing I could have done to a turkey. Yeah, preceded. Earlier, I shot him with a gun.

Yeah. I just wanted to stop flopping i mean like obviously if the turkey gets back up i can't run behind it so i mean if i put my wheel on his head he can't go anywhere all right so the guy and his partner whoever he was working with they put a video together like i had um it was it wasn't even it was that for a producer and editor video sucked so bad like a six-year-old could have did better. Like, they had video, like, the B-roll of, like, me looking at the turkey, like, fanning it out, and, like, just showing, like, me showing the coloration of the feathers and everything. And then, like, it goes to a scene where, like, my wheel is on a turkey head, and, like, that was the finished product.

So this guy, it's, like, a turkey head. And like, that was the finished product. So this guy, it's like a terrible video. So the guy, like you, it's meant to be that it's all one continuous action. You like, you admire a turkey

and then lay it back down and run it over? I guess that's what they were trying to proceed. Okay. But it was such a terrible video. But it was enough to

make sponsors have an easy way out so this guy so I was doing seminars and shows and speaking events things like that and I was starting to get monetary sponsors this guy whoever I was working with

affiliated with this guy sent out the video to and like I lost a lot of money over this stupid stuff. I mean like a lot of money. Because of a video of me shooting a turkey. And then like

at this time, this is like when I don't know if you guys remember like the big bill thing when he shot that elk or whatever and left it. Oh, in Wyoming. Oh, well, yeah. Shot that elk but accidentally hit a second elk. Yeah.

So this was around that same time period. Which is totally like that part of it, shooting elk and accidentally getting another one, that could happen. Yeah. To lots of people. But whether or not you own up to it. Yeah.

So the companies that saw this video are like, oh, well, there's too much pressure on the hunting industry right now. We don't need this being a part of our business floating around because you put your wheel on a turkey's head. So it was an easy way out. So I started losing contracts. Like... I haven't

seen this video. Let's say I went to one of these sponsors that you lost a deal with. And I said to them, hey, what happened with... I don't understand what happened with Josh Carney. What went on there? Do your best job of telling me what they would say. I honestly don't know.

You can't picture that they would have a different story than what you're telling me. He put his wheel on a turkey's head. That's all that it's like he put his wheel on a turkey's head that's all that it was i put my wheel on a turkey's head that's it they're like okay well it honestly it was an easy way out but easy way out implies that they wanted out they it's like okay well we don't have a budget this year i mean it's like okay well now we have oh well you're doing this. That's not what we want to represent as a company.

And the video was perceived as such that it was being pushed as something disrespectful against animals. Yeah. Hey, folks, exciting news for those who live or hunt in Canada. And boy, my goodness, do we hear from the Canadians whenever we do a raffle or a sweepstakes. And our raffle and sweepstakes law makes it that they can't join.

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if you visit onxmaps.com slash meet. onxmaps.com slash meet. Welcome to the OnX x club y'all but what okay i don't i don't want to like belabor this video issue but it sucks so bad video was the video though was the video in the end was the video meant to do what it was supposed to do? Or did the video, they put the video out there to be damaging? They put it out to be damaging. So they weren't like trying to make something great. No, no, no.

So this was filmed for a TV show. Okay. They took enough of the footage from that to splice it down to make this video. All right. To send to the companies. Gotcha. It was intentional. It was a vendetta for

something. Maybe you don't even know what. The owner of the show and the producer got to it. And the producer was the guy that was trying to be my manager. So the owner of the show, once they got to it, the guy was trying to be my manager so the owner of the show once they got to it the guy was trying to take down everything that the producer had and i was in that mix of it

okay and at that time i was being very successful and i was on a lot i had a lot of attention on me so it was a very easy and it was very easy i was a very easy target i mean even the heck today the guy still tries to use the video to send to people i'm like dude that was five years ago no shit really yeah five years ago so it just yeah I've met some great people, honey, and don't get me wrong. But for every good person, I've met a lot of shady people, too. I mean. Do you think it's, is it hunting? Or is it, like, business?

I think it's both, to be honest with you. Because from the business side of it, like, no one's going to show you. A lot of these people aren't going to show you their true colors. They're going to want you to do, for me personally, I was, I'm going to go back to what I said earlier, I was a puppet. I brought attention to a company for them to make a buck out of it

and I didn't make a dime. Yeah, I know, I'm with you. So I was just a token item for them to gain something. What was the last time you did a talk, like gave a talk? My last speaking event had to be last year. Like I said, I took a huge break from the whole hunting industry after 2018. Like I said, I lost a lot in that industry. Heck, I went to that show.

I came back home, and I had a heart attack. It stressed me out so bad. Literally a heart attack. Yeah. I flew back home. I went to the gym later that night. I was stressed out. I mean, this was like my shot.

I finally started to make money. And I lost a lot of money at a show because of that video. It was timed for the show. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Then the bad part about it, everything that was happening, going back to the bad moments,

I was letting those bad moments pile up. Yeah. I had just got turned down on a good contract. After they turned me down, the guy that produced it and sent it out walks up and i was livid like emotion like i i was i was in a different state of mind at that point that it was a miserable show for me like it was eating me up inside like a horrible show for me. Then another thing I was losing,

I was losing, um, spots of like being, uh, so this is a time phase where the hunting industry was so focused on, you know, being a cute blonde chick, you know, half naked doing shows just to get,

you know, promotion. And I felt really i felt that it got away from the value of hunting that i was just i don't know i guess i was just a little bitter about it because i mean i was losing i felt like i was losing out to um people that wanted to be something that they weren't and like i i just i got caught up in that realm of trying to be someone else that i lost focus of who i was like i just like i didn't understand the fact that you know i'm that i was getting caught up in that mix so yeah no i know

yeah there's like you know i mean sex sells and everything yeah i mean it definitely sells underwear yeah and all kinds of stuff and yeah like you know as much as it's even fair to talk about like the hunting industry as though it's this sort of like definable containable thing i know what you're talking about when there became this it's it's sort of like this male fantasy thing where it'd be that um you know you have these people that like oh that you know they're so beautiful and and they like to hunt yeah and it's like this like complete total package right that you like present as a as a marketing thing yeah right it's like all my problems i'm lonely and I have no woman, and now look, this one's beautiful,

and she would appreciate my hunting prowess. Not only that, but she loves to hunt, and that's how I will sell products. Yep, yep. Bunch of old creepy guys in hunting. So back to that subject. When that was going on i was like all right well a lot of these people can't like it was so um it was so instant modeled the hunting industry became so instant modeled that i was like all right cool this is not even hunting anymore it's

hollywood like it's not like something that i was like i was i was one of those guys that i was a rebel like i was like look i bust my butt to go out here and do it, and I know what I'm bringing to the table. I don't feel that it's right for me to lose something to somebody that just picked up a gun two weeks ago and killed an animal. You felt like you had a product, but you were losing some of these opportunities, some of these paid opportunities to folks that didn't even have a product. I felt that I brought more value to the table than what I was getting out of it.

And to lose a spot to someone that had no knowledge, couldn't teach you about anything hunting related, to lose it to a cute face, I was in a very ill mood. So I made a post post and it wasn't even Like it wasn't bad. It was more information or anything saying how the hunting industry was just becoming more of that sex sale type thing and It flared up a lot of attention Yeah, because I'm one of those guys like I will say like I'll say what the rooms not willing to say like

Everybody's taking it. Hell. I'm just gonna say it i'll say what the room's not willing to say like everybody's taking it hell i'm just gonna say it i'm gonna clear the elephant out that's what it was it was one of those deals well it's a it's a super sensitive subject though man because i was a lot of that's a super sensitive subject it's a super sensitive subject because the hunting industry traditionally was not hostile well in cases hostile to women um i hesitate to say hostile women not as inviting to women meaning right like 90 of the people that buy a hunting license are guys yeah 10 in women um i don't think i imagine that you would always have i i don't picture a world in which there'd be equal

representation between men and women i don't picture that but i feel if dads and whatever dads granddads didn't have such a strong bias toward the boys in their family in favor of the boys their family and against participation from women we would land not at 90 10 maybe be 70 30 like 70 male 30 female 60 40 there's no way it's gonna be 50 50 i think there's like i think there's biological factors that would prevent 50 50 but it wouldn't be 90 10 so there is a thing where, to increase female representation in hunting is important. To hear women's voices about hunting and in hunting is important. But I think that there's also a thing, and I recognize it too, which is very much people take that need, but then they can't help themselves but to sexify it.

Oh, yeah, no doubt. And I want my daughter, I have a seven-year-old daughter. I have like, I don't overpressure her, but she is very clear on the fact that her dad very much wants her to go hunting and fishing to the point where I want her to feel a little guilty when she doesn't go. Do I then need to have it turn,

like, do I want her to hunt in a bikini top no i feel like she could look roughly like her brothers like the same basic get up that her brothers are comfortable in should be suitable for my daughter so this thing that we're talking about like i recognize it's very complex yeah to be like everything man it is complex to the point too where is if your daughter was like yeah but dad what i want to do is hunt in a bikini top and then you would have to be and be like i really want you to go uh yes it's a no dude cal that's a great point man because that would be what if what if yeah what she said to me this is how i like to do it i like i want

to um i love it it's fun like this it makes it fun like this what am i gonna say like no you cannot go in that bikini top she's seven right now so i'm not there yet i got time to figure it out but yes it's hard to deal with yeah and so then you throw and you go you look at the demographics right and you throw some anybody up on a poster and the marketing person's like i want that poster to represent the the middle of the bell curve the the vast majority, to draw the most people in. And so you get in this conversation where it's like, here's this very, very pretty girl, man, whatever. Is that representing the majority of the bell curve?

Is that bringing in the most people? It's going to represent some faction 100%, but it's not going to represent them all yeah they're advertising a water park in the elevators in the place we're staying in right now and the advertisements for the water park are families and the moms into things are in bikinis but it's like not sexualized it's a water park and there's families i think it's not sexual i think a bikini is more appropriate for a water park than a deer stand yeah i just want to say like i don't want to overemphasize the bikini aspect of this because there are places where people you know yeah it should be uh you know everybody runs around but man a little bit the

final complexity this is all i'm gonna say about it because not all i'm gonna say about it but the other thing i found is that women don't necessarily want don't necessarily need 46 year old dudes like me explaining this to them yeah so i get it i get it but i understand what i understand so where uh where'd you go from there i took a really uh like a detoxing break i mean i uh i still had a couple events and a couple companies that i was working with and um i i just kind of i i fell off the radar a little bit to figure out who the hell i was because like i said i i focused so much on being this persona to fit this hunting image that i didn't know who i was anymore and i want to ask about your friends group too because before you were like well one way

with my friends group and one way with so your friends group are they um do you have a bunch of folks like in your core friends group that are like let's go hunting let's go hunting or are they not in the hunting world so i i not industry but like like to be outdoors, like hunting. I have friends that are in the industry that I will go hunting with. But when I wasn't of value to them, I lost a lot of friends. Sure. Got you. I mean, if I didn't bring it to the table, well, you know. And the funny thing is, like, for these trade shows, like, we're all buddy-buddy, shaking hands.

Oh, my God, I miss you. It's great to see you, all this stuff. For the rest of 360 days, 306 whatever days, I don't even worry from them. Don't know who you are. You go to a different show, they're like, oh, well, who are you? I mean, like, that's the kind of people of people like we're running with in this industry like if it doesn't benefit them at the time then you know you're just another sticking away but man i think that you're no no no i'm not saying you're like that like i'm not saying it for anybody i just have a bad i have

a bad um sense of picking people but I think you're talking about people. True, true. You're talking about the hunting industry, but I'm like, I don't know. If we were in cosmetics, if we were in the cosmetics industry, I feel like maybe you would have found the same thing. Oh, I'm pretty sure it's in every industry. I totally agree. I'm not trying to stand around and stick up for, you know,

I play in the hunting industry considerably. I'm not sitting around trying to be their advocate and mouthpiece or something but i'm just saying i feel like it's just you found out some shit about life yeah it'd be unjust to say this is just specific to this no no no i i agree it's it's in life in general but i was so stuck in that round like that's what i was surrounded with sure yeah no i understand i understand where you come from man yeah but now um you're you do want to come and like you're ready to talk again but you want to talk to new people yeah i mean i'm like i don't mind talking i'll talk to anybody i'll talk to a wall i don't bother me i'll get you a certain amount of trouble in some quarters i mean like speaking is like what drives me but like i i just want to get i want to get out of that scene like because like i was so saturated in that in the whole hunting industry around like i didn't know anything else so like

now i'm just like okay well it's time for me to you know venture out and do more stuff yeah what what industry you working in right now like you just went like during your detox you just went and worked in a completely unrelated world yeah no i'd like from my detox like i went from so like i went like this is how like crazy it was i went from um you know driven in a hunting industry like i finished like i think last spring i did like a turkey turkey tour i do a turkey tour every year so i did that and like after i finished that like i got back home was like all right cool um i love hunting i'm happy hunting but i don't want to stick in this realm anymore like it's just like it's not what makes me happy like it it took a lot of the passion away from me yeah so i left there and i worked at a freaking car dealership

like completely opposite of anything you know but i wanted to get into the field of the real world and get out of you know this saturation that i've been in for so long. So I did that. From there, it was the worst job I've ever had. That was way worse than anything I ever did with Hunt Entry. It was terrible. So if anybody ever wants to buy a car, do not call me. You were trying to sell cars. No, no, no. I wasn't at sales.

It's a BDC is what it's called. So I would be the person to get people in to buy cars. It was more like a... Let me come... You like this? Let me introduce you to our top sales guy. Yeah, something

like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I even grew the hair out. I had the whole car salesman look. Well, a car salesman has longer hair. i mean you know the slick back like the 1980 car salesman with like the old suit like the slick back hair like too much grease yeah that was me i grew my hair out everything like it was terrible it was your dad right because he's this houndsman those are very dedicated people um was he supportive of you was he like proud of you uh you know quote unquote making a name for yourself in hunting? Or was he kind of like, I don't really know about that side of hunting.

No, I think my family was supportive about it. I mean, honestly, I was and I'm still one of those guys. If I want to do something, I'm just going to do it. They didn't have

a particular say-so on me just packing my bags up and going hunting, going traveling across the world. I would literally leave my house one day and I'd come back two months later. I mean, that's the decision that so focused on being successful and accomplishing things that I sacrificed a lot. I mean, I sacrificed a lot of time. I remember I think I went three or four years without being home for Christmas or Thanksgiving. I never saw my family because I was always on the road trying to be in that next level of success. So, I mean, they were supportive in that fact that I was driven enough to do that. But you're thinking now about, now that you kind of dusted off,

you're thinking now about going back out in the world to talk to people again. Yeah. I mean, that's my passion like i think you know everybody has a gift and my gift is to um i'm a i'm a good people pleaser like bad situations a good situation like i can figure out ways to make a situation be viewed from a different aspect. And I think that's what really drives me. That's what I'm really passionate about. So if you go to talk to people and you have an audience in front of you, what's the takeaway?

The takeaway of your talk isn't that you're a people pleaser. No, no, no no no so i think it's more about um overcoming life you know everybody's faced with challenging obstacles in life you know it's either it's either you fight through it or you give up and you know i was at that point where i wanted to give up many times and i never did it because i knew that if i kept pushing through I kept fighting like it would eventually get better. It's not going to be easy, but it's going to get better. And once it gets better, you know, better gets to phenomenal. And I want to be at a phenomenal level in my life.

You know, and there's like a lot of people that struggle with things on a daily basis. Everybody struggles with something on a daily basis. Everybody struggles with something on a daily basis. So if I can get someone to figure a way to understand that what they're going through is not something that they have to go through or have to stay in that situation, that is what I want to present. Because like I said, we are only here to deal with bad issues for a moment in our lives. It's not going to take over our lives you know so being able to present a different side and a different outlook on life to someone is what

i want to present to people um i've had people that have been in way worse situations i have and they have failed to understand that life's not over. You know, you could still move on no matter how dark your days are. I mean, like after every storm and sunshine. I mean, there's something better for you in life. You just have to understand that it's out there. You have to keep wanting it. You know, I think I think about when you bring that up is just having been always just like, you know, just like blessed and lucky, right?

Not you, but me. I just, you know, like, I don't know, just lucky. And sometimes I'll wake up in the morning and my kids will come down. All three of our kids will be coming to bed with me and my wife, you know. And instead of thinking like you're saying, like, I want saying, I want things to get better and better and then phenomenal, I think, like, how could this perfection continue? Like, there's no way something bad has to happen.

Like, how could one get so lucky? And I think to have, probably if there's a blessing to having just such a major setback like you had, it would probably be to get some reality there. Yeah.

You know? I remember one time being down in Florida and we're like on the beach me and my wife are on the beach we're on family vacation we only had two kids at the time the kids are playing they're like helping each other do somersaults and she's like things are so perfect it makes me feel like something bad's coming did something bad happen no well there you go oh well well you know what we didn't know at that time was we had firmly agreed that two kids was more than enough and we didn't know that it's funny that story particular is we didn't know that at that moment she was pregnant with our third which was like kicked to the nuts but in the end yeah in the end it's like you know like everybody like everybody says like such a blessing right and it is i mean it's amazing but at the time so when she's that's

what we laughed about later it's like oh yeah something bad wasn't gonna happen another kid this is kind of backpedaling to what cal asked about your dad uh how your dad felt about you kind of getting so deep in the industry. But I kind of wanted to know, you say that you don't really remember what kind of guilt your dad was carrying shortly after the accident. Ten years pass after the accident and you start to kind of make a living and gain nationwide, worldwide attention from not only your calls but also retelling the story of being shot by your dad and i mean you'd think that after 10 years there's probably a lot of healing healing happening like between just like with the guilt he was carrying maybe that and then all of a sudden it just like was it like a wound opening back up for him that you were touring the country telling this story which is like over and over again do you think there was

any like obviously he was probably proud of you for for getting up there and becoming a speaker and uh but yeah he's after a while i'd be like enough already do you think there's any resentment at all you know it's kind of one of those deals like uh hey dad you remember that time you shot me yeah here's a video on it you're gonna watch this here. It's set to very sad piano music. Yeah, yeah. Very depressing.

And then like, okay, yeah, give me your credit card. I want to buy a new truck. I don't guilt trip anybody. Has your dad okay? Oh, yeah. My dad's fine.

You guys close? We don't turkey hunt together anymore. But you still communicate with him? Yeah. But other than that, I can say we don't

turkey hunt together. It's a different subject for a different day? Yeah. But, you know, other than that, I can say we don't talk about it together. I mean, it's a different subject for a different day. Yeah. But, no, I mean, as far as, you know, opening that wound, I don't think – I think it's healed. I honestly think it's healed. But being able to show that it didn't hinder me in life, I think that that's something that

has helped him heal. I think it's helped me and my whole family heal from the situation. Because I mean, I don't look at my accident as it was something devastating. I'm grateful for it.

It would not have made me the person. No shit, really? It would not have made me the person that I am right now if it wouldn't it would not have made no shit really yeah it would have i i it would not have made me the person that i am right now if it didn't happen i mean there's no telling what i would have been doing or you know what kind of guy i would have been if my accident ever happened like it humbled me so much um because like i said you know we take things for granted all the time. I could have been a selfish prick if I never got my leg taken away from me.

Sure, man. But now, I cherish the little things. I'm grateful for so much more now. I don't think my accident was one of those deals where I should get bitter over it. I think it's one of those things that really humbled me in life. You could have been the type of dude who wouldn't have thrown a roadkill deer in the back of the truck in the rain you know that's never gonna happen again so if if if people want as much as you're wanting to do this if people want to contact you um to talk about having you come and talk to a group or how do they do it? How do they get a hold of you? I think the easiest way to get a hold of me is I have a Facebook page.

It's called Son of the South, S-O-N of the South. And I think that's probably the easiest way to message me. I stay on – I used to stay on social media a lot, but I've laid back on that pretty much. But if people wanted to send you a message, they could still find you. Oh, yeah. I'm not hard to find. Just look for a black guy in a wheelchair making animal sounds. Not hard to find at all. The group narrows down pretty quick.

Alright, man. This has been great. Josh Carney, Son of the South. Sometimes I get called Malfoy the South. Don't know why. They probably get to talk a lot. I like it. We'll stick with Son of the South. Don't know why. They probably got to talk a lot. I like it. Yeah. We'll stick with

Son of the South for now though. Thanks so much for coming on, man. And yeah, now that you told everybody how to find you, if you want to learn

more about Josh, go track him down. Thank you very much. Thank you. Hey folks, exciting news for those who live or hunt in Canada. You might not be able to join our raffles and sweepstakes and all that because of raffle and sweepstakes law, but hear this. OnX Hunt is now in Canada. It is now at your fingertips, you Canadians.

The great features that you love in OnX are available for your hunts this season. Now the Hunt app is a fully functioning GPS with hunting maps that include public and crown land, hunting zones, aerial imagery, 24K topo maps, waypoints and tracking. You can even use

offline maps to see where you are without cell phone service as a special offer you can get a free 3 months to try out OnX if you visit onxmaps.com slash meet