bogging down?

[seadooNY575]

ran our 96 sportster and it was running great, stopped it at one point in about 1-2 feet of water and it sucked up quite a bit of sand/mud so we killed the engine immediately. after about two hours of sitting in the water we started it again and took off with no problems. I made sure to see that water was shooting out the rear hole, which it was and it shot out some sand. Then after about 20 minutes of riding the rpms dropped to idle and we lost thrust. I eased back on the throttle and pushed it forward but could not regain high rpms or anything more that idle thrust. I also noticed water barely coming out of the rear hole, however the engine did not feel hotter than usual. after getting it back on the trailer, I hooked it up to the hose and it revved fine and water was coming out of the rear hole, the only odd thing was that after I revved it and brought the throttle lever back to the idle position it did not immediately drop the rpms, it is almost as if it was stuck and after 5-10 seconds it went back to idle. when i tried revving it again it did not do it again. help!

 

[salmonkiller01]

I am not positive but the sucking up sand and mud may not be related to the low engine rpm, because it took a few seconds to rev down i would suspect fuel starvation. The best way to check would be remove carbs and clean internal filters, or the easiest way would be to run in the water and pull the choke and see if it gains power, if it does put it on the trailer and clean the carbs. Do you have the infamouse grey fuel lines? If so I would just replace them and clean the carb filters.