I would take the carb off, remove the jets, clean it out real well in all the little orifices, and re-jet appropriately.
Since it appears that you have what looks like a free flow exhaust, the stock jets won't be adequate at all. Also, if it has the air filter in that rectangular airbox, then that is too restrictive of a filter.
If you are near sea level, you'll want a 27.5 pilot and 127.5 main for starters, and you'll be wanting a P2 needle jet($30), and some needle adjustments toward the richer side when you do plug chops. Sometimes they even need a 2.5 throttle slide, which is like $40. This adds up to some money spent on a very marginal carburetor.
Knowing what I learned since I first got my Bullet, and assuming the keeping the bike is intended, I would recommend forgetting about the Mikarb. Just take it off, and put on a Mikuni TM32 with our manifold and a short piece of 1.5" I.D. radiator hose, and jet it like the rest of us have them. You can get one for under $150, and the jets are less than 5 bucks for most of them. Then you have a real carb, and can skip all the Mikarb gyrations trying to make it work decently, and so you can put that fifty bucks or more towared the new TM32, and don't waste it on the Mikarb.
My 2 cents.