It may not "beat the heat," but it's time to think "elk."

Bulls' velvet-shrouded antlers are swelling, and in scarcely more than a month, their bugling calls will enliven Pennsylvania's Allegheny Plateau. Elk spotters satisfy their addiction by watching the herds at viewing sites on Winslow Hill, Sinnemahoning State Park or at Hicks Run in Elk and Cameron counties. But a few dozen of the luckiest individuals this side of a Pennsylvania Lottery jackpot will be there the first week of November to hunt.

Whoever those lucky hunters will be, they first must enter the 2008 elk license application drawing before the upcoming deadlines. Hunters who wish to submit their application by mail for the Nov. 3-8 elk season must get it to the Game Commission's post office box by Friday. An official application is provided inside the 2008-2009 Pennsylvania Digest of Hunting and Trapping Regulations, provided to each general hunting license buyer. Mail-in applications also can be printed from the Game Commission's Web site at www.pgc.state.pa.us. Applicants are not required to purchase a general hunting license before entering the elk drawing, but a check for $10, payable to the Pennsylvania Game Commission must accompany the elk license application.

The Game Commission will award 45 elk tags (17 for antlered bulls, 28 for antlerless elk) at a public drawing to be held at 5 p.m. Sept. 20 at the 2008 Elk Expo at the Elk County Fairgrounds in Kersey.

"You've got to play to win," said John Provident III, of McMurray, whose name was drawn to hunt a bull elk in 2005. "My friends and I actually believed it was fixed, but I said, 'Hey, I'm sending in my $10 donation anyway.'

"My wife and I were away from home and I forgot about the drawing. She checked the answering machine and told me there was a guy on there who said I'd been picked for an elk license. I just dropped to my knees. I couldn't believe it. I can tell anyone now that it's not fixed."

Provident later killed a bull elk while accompanied by his father and his son, guided by Jack Manack, of Elk Country Outfitters.

"The $10 is almost no cost compared to the experience," Provident said. "Our whole family and 13 friends got to participate. That memory will carry through forever for all of us."

The odds for a hunter to make those memories are better than ever. The number of applicants for elk licenses dropped from 50,000 in 2001, when the state held its first elk hunt in modern times, to around 20,000 in 2007. Hunters who have applied unsuccessfully for elk licenses since 2003 also have been awarded "preference points." In addition to their 2008 application, their names will be entered once for each application submitted since 2003. Hunters drawn for the privilege of buying the $25 elk license have enjoyed an 80 percent success rate, but the man who knows Pennsylvania's elk better than anyone says that doesn't mean it's a sure thing.

"People sometimes see the elk that are habituated to people around the viewing sites and they think the hunt is easy," said Rawley Cogan, Northeast Lands Program Manager for the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation. "But I liken the situation to Yellowstone National Park, and to people visiting there concluding that all elk in Wyoming and Montana are easily approached. The Winslow Hill viewing area is in the 7-square-mile 'no-hunt' zone. But when you get in the 'back country,' the elk are very different. I ride horses in these areas and when you ride up on elk, they move off very quickly, just like deer."

Since 1991, the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation has invested more than $4 million in protecting habitats for elk and other wildlife in Pennsylvania and another quarter-million educating the public about elk and wildlife conservation. The annual Elk Expo, sponsored by the Northwest Pennsylvania Great Outdoors Visitors Bureau, celebrates elk, public lands and the outdoor lifestyle in northern Pennsylvania. In addition to elk viewing, the license drawing and elk education seminars, this year's Expo (Sept. 19-20) offers fly-fishing instruction, chainsaw carving, outdoor photography workshops and more.

"Without a doubt, the elk license drawing is our biggest draw. It's the one thing that everyone wants to be in the crowd for and maybe hear their name drawn," said Expo coordinator Carla Wehler. "I believe that every year we've had someone present whose name was drawn for a license. It's very exciting."