I've looked at diagrams in my service manual and it points to a spot under the tank. The manual shows no actual pictures of the fuel filter. I took the tank off and there are lines going from the bottom of the tank on the main petcock shutoff to the petcock for the on/prime/resevior valve.

Am I missing something here???   

How do I get to this mysterious fuel filter that is aparently clogged a bit and starving my engine of gas making it spiratically missfire and sputter?

No mystery filter here SnowBird! At least not some where to see, it is in the tank..

You have to unsrew the fuel chicken (That's what my Haynes calls it  ) from the tank an clean it.

Fuel Filter is a screen over the pick up in the tank.

None except for that sorry excuse 'in' the tank, do yourself a favor and put an inline on there....