175 ocean pro issue

[russ87gn]

first of all im new to boating my wording my not be correct. I took my boat out today and it ran fine except for every once in a while the motor would bounce up for a split second and the engine would sputter then take right back off like nothing was wrong. it was a little rough is this common in rough seas or do I have something wrong. I did make sure the motor was all the way down after the first time it happened and t only seemed to do it past half throttle

 

[Boobie]

First guess would be a clutch dog in the lower unit going bad. A model# would also help.