Appleby was attacked by a shark at Granites beach, near Streaky Bay, just before 7pm on Thursday.

The 28-year-old was one of seven children, with the family calling Streaky Bay home for 25 years.

Today, his brother Kenneth Appleby paid tribute online to the much-loved surfer.

“The pain we are feeling as a family is impossible to describe,” he wrote.

“We are absolutely devastated, and there is a gaping hole in our hearts.

“The only solace we can find is knowing that Lance was doing what he loved with a beaming smile on his face.

“Forever young, forever surfing, forever loved.”

As locals laid floral tributes at the beach, volunteers continued to scour the coastline on foot for signs of Appleby.

A number of small items have been located along the shoreline, which could be linked, but the search has been stopped for the evening and will resume at low tide tomorrow.

A witness, who did not want to be named, returned to the beach today and told 9News he saw the attack unfold.

“Someone said ‘call an ambulance, he’s been taken’, then everything went off, horns, people screaming,” he said.

“I saw thrashing. I just ran right across the rocks and that’s when I saw him.

“There were older blokes wanting to go out and grab him and people had to stop them.

“He wasn’t far out, it was only about one-metre deep water. He was in between two people, in the middle, and it just happened to take him.”

The popular beach is normally heaving with people but remained closed today as the tight-knit community grieves for one of its own.

An online fundraiser has reached almost $20,000 for the Appleby family, with the local mayor remembering the victim as very well liked in the community.

“You wouldn’t find a person with a bad word to say about him, and a genuinely good bloke,” Travis Barber said in a statement.

His former Football Club Marble Range described Appleby as having “a heart of gold, who always had a smile on his face, and adored within our community”.