Pawnbroker, I know the agony you're experiencing and I feel very badly and angered regarding your loss.
After reading all your comments I think you're the kind of guy that will not let it go and that you now have this obsession to catch the punk(s) and deal out your form of retribution to regain some measure of satisfaction from being ripped off from your prized possessions.
Yeah it's a real bummer and if I were in your shoes I probably would go beserk if the perps were caught.But I should say here that perhaps that common sense and covering your my friend as far as wilfully breaking the law should be considered.
Don't try to be a hero and tackle this alone. Round up a few close and trusted friends and think about a well planned vigilante action. Use FRS 2-way radios for communications at your proposed stakeout locations. It looks like the punk's MO is to operate after dusk looking out for easy targets so learn to play their game and in such case the night scene can play out very well for handing out frontier justice.
I'd like to call this the CATCH & RELEASE game since we want to be good sportsmen. If you guys are lucky to catch them please don't apply any form of violence on the scumbags as you could be charged with assault and besides a good beating will not have a lasting effect and soon afterwards they'll go back to doing the same thieving stuff all over again.
Now remember you're a seasoned hunter and you have good knowledge of the forest so the best thing is to hogtie and blindfold 'em and drive out to a distant and remote area, strip 'em down to a bare top to keep some sense of decency and dump 'em there in the middle of the night to find their own way back.This kind of psychological punishment will play very strongly in the mind and the cold reality of their misdeeds will be embedded in their memory as they struggle for survival throughout the darkness of the night. If they lose out to the elements, tsk tsk, it's not your fault as these are lost souls and no loss to society.
Oh, one last thing. Don't go bragging about it should that happen . Play it safe as you never know there are some bleeding hearts that will be feeling sorry for the criminals.