Alright, guys. Was on the water today for about 2 hours. After 2 hours, started the motor up, no problem. Then tried to hammer down, it just stalled and shut down. Started it again, no problem. But it idled really rough. Tried to give it some gas, it shut down. Is this water in the gas, bad spark plug..anything? Ran perfect all over the lake for about 2 hours with no issues. Then I had the combo rough idle and giving it gas shut down. I'm assuming its a gas issue or a spark plug. Anybody had this problem and any suggestions? Going to check spark plugs as soon as I get home. Thanks in advance!

Here is a list of what it can be starting with the most common:
1........spark plug went bad
2........carb flooded
3........lost spark in one or more holes
4........carb plugged by piece of trash
5........carb needle stuck because of ethonal fuel and no stablile added
6........water in fuel
7........stator failure
8........trigger failure

Thanks for the list! Forgot to mention that I could rev it up as high as I wanted in neutral and it wouldn't die. Does that rule out anything?

If its a 2 cycle it might be low oil. My Yamaha has acted kind of like that when it would get low on oil.

It is 2 cycle but I've bypassed the oiler, so I mix.

Sounds like carb troubles to me.

So what is causing the motor to do this after its been run all over the lake with no problems?

It's a long shot but pull the plugs and shine a flashlight in to see if any water is beading on the piston heads. I had a similar issue that got worse as the motor heated up--water leaking into the cylinder head. New cylinder head gaskets fixed it.

If you're using a portable fuel tank, check the pickup tube in the tank to see that it remains in fuel all the time. I had this happen with a new 6 gallon fuel tank. The motor ran fine until I'd get down to about two gallons. Then it would start easily and run fine so long as the bow never left the water, but accelerate to get it on plane and it would bog down in a hundred feet. After weeks of chasing the gremlin--new fuel lines, new fuel pump, rebuilt carb--I finally realized this never happened when the tank was full. With 2 gallons or less of fuel,the motor was fuel starved whenever the tank was tilted (as in attempting to get on plane). I replaced the pickup tube from the new tank with the tube from the old fuel tank. End of problem. The motor has run fine for three years now.

Cold engines act that way until they warm up. You said that it was 2hrs for lack of a better term sitting enough time to cool off. I don't like putting my foot in one without properly warming it up first as per everyone I've spoken to advise. Could be wrong it's worth a try.

militarybrat, looks like I wasn't entirely clear. I had run the boat all over the lake for the previous 2 hours, so the boat was definitely warm. I would run for about 5-10 minutes, stop and fish. Run for 5-10 minutes, stop and fish. No problems. All the sudden, started it up after a fishing spot, it started no problem. But would bog down when given throttle. So it wasn't a cold engine.

Ok had one doing this and it turned out to be the stator. Accidently touched the top of the flywheel after running and it was real hot.