I think of all the shorties i've played with out there the one that impressed me the most was Ron La Clairs Shrew..... I just love that design. Years ago i talked with Ron about loving his design and wanting to build something similar myself. He said that copying his design would be the highest compliment he could get from a another bowyer. That guy was an incredible man....
I did in fact build a few 52" bows rather similar to Ron's Shrew design that i called The "Yeti". I hunted with one for several years myself, and it was really nice in the brush. I have a 30" draw and it didn't come close to stacking this little bow either...
Here she is at about 29" draw... The picture got snapped before i hit anchor point here. That is a full length 32" shaft with a broad head.
I still have this bow hanging in my shop. This was the first prototype and lasted a couple years before developing a noise i didn't like when drawing it. So i retired it to a wall hanger. The bows i built after this one, i used power lams extending the fade tips and it increased the draw length capasity even more.
I haven't built a Yeti in quite some time now, but still have the forms. The demand for shorty bows and popularity come and go like the tides, but never were real big sellers even though they are excellent shooters. The 58-60" bows were much more popular. Kirk