Jeff Dement picked a perfect day for his annual American Littoral Society tagging trip on the Mi-Jo II from Atlantic Highlands, but didn't let the fish in on his plans. The weather was great, and we had good drifting conditions almost all the time -- but hits were few and far between for the 33 participants (including ALS staff) though Capt. Mike Scardigno made many moves. The ALS trip should be an easy one to satisfy, because keepers aren't that important. The object is to tag as many fluke as possible, but even shorts were hard to come by. Only fluke of at least 12 inches were tagged, and just 40 of them were recorded. I was surprised to find that I ended up as high hook with five of my seven fluke being tagged. All were caught on the teaser hook with a 4-inch, chartreuse Gulp Swimming Mullet. We weren't fishing very long, and weren't far from the dock, when Lenny Zemeckis of Edison boated a 5 1/2-pound fluke that was by far the largest of the day and the only one kept as it seemed to be a sure thing for the pool. Two of the 40 tagged made at least 18 inches, but the anglers preferred to have them tagged by Dement's crew. Even a veteran fluke angler and tagger like Tank Matraxia of Lyndhurst could only add one to his total of over 2,500 fish. Matraxia just received notifications from Dement of two more tag returns -- bringing him up to 139. Surprisingly, there wasn't much variety. Most unusual was a bunker that somehow got a jig in its mouth. A few small dogfish and a single sea robin were also released.  Despite the lack of action, everyone had a fine time aboard the comfortable 75-foot large group charter boat -- and will be back for the next attempt. For information on the ALS tagging program, call Dement at his Sandy Hook office -- 732 291-0055. There was no improvement in the ocean bluefishing today. The Golden Eagle from Belmar reported catching some sea bass, ling and fluke to provide fish for dinner.