The body of Mr Copland (63), a long-serving Wanaka Community Board member, was found at 5pm yesterday by search and rescue and coastguard personnel in Lake Wanaka, about 1km north of Boundary Creek.
Family members had raised the alarm and a search was activated on Sunday night after he failed to return from a solo fly-fishing day trip.
A tracking team was deployed along with a helicopter using night-vision equipment but they failed to find any sign of Mr Copland.
Early yesterday morning, a fly-fishing backpack and Labrador dog belonging to Mr Copland were found on a gravel island at the mouth of the Makarora River, along with a set of footprints.
Senior Constable Mike Johnston said it appeared Mr Copland had waded into the water and on to a terrace off a gravel island bordering the main river and the head of the lake.
All indications were that he had slipped off the edge of the terrace into the river and on into the lake.
Family friend and spokesman John Barlow was ''dumbstruck'' when he heard his fishing mate had died. Mr Copland had asked him to go on the trip but he had been unable to accompany him.
''Fate has intervened,'' he said.
He had known Mr Copland for about 15 years and said his loss would be sorely felt.
''He was such a larger-than-life figure and a man of such positivity that the town will miss him,'' he said.
Mr Copland, a retired farmer, moved to Wanaka from Middlemarch in the early 1990s and was a Wanaka Community Board member for 15 years.
Board chairman and Queenstown Lakes district councillor Lyall Cocks described his colleague's death as a ''very sad day'' and offered his condolences to Mr Copland's family.
Mr Copland is survived by his wife Frances and daughters Emma and Melissa.
His death has been referred to the coroner.
An obituary will follow.
