File:View south along an old fish yair - geograph.org.uk - 1055008.jpg

English: View south along an old fish yair. This is the "fish yair" (a fish-trap in the form of a barrier) marked on the 1:25000 map, as seen from a point about halfway along its length. The southern end of the yair is seen here as a long sweeping arc reaching out into the River Clyde.

The northern half, as seen from the same point, is shown here: 1055035. There also happened to be a kind of receptacle at this point along its course: 1055019. The tip of the yair, as seen from much further out on the beach, is shown here: 1078407.

Since the fishing yair seems to be a local phenomenon, it is worth explaining. The book "Short History of Dumbartonshire", by Dr I. M. M. MacPhail, quotes an excerpt from the "Old Statistical Account, 1792-94"; its entry for Cardross includes the following:

"The Zair or Yair fishings, so productive in this parish, seem to be peculiar to it. The yair is a crescent of stones, about four feet in height, which encloses the fish at high water - especially herring and also salmon, the fish being secured from the yairs by a hand-net."

[To explain the "Zair/Yair" alternation in that extract: in Middle Scots, the sound of consonantal "y" was written with the letter yogh (ȝ), whose printed forms were sometimes indistinguishable from those of the much less frequently used letter "z". From the seventeenth century, the sound was written using the more familiar letter "y" instead.]

There are other fish yairs in the Clyde, fairly close to this one; for example, one at Ardmore is seen well in this image: 392739.

[A final reminder: it is dangerous to venture out on these mudflats; the tide flows in very quickly over the shallow gradient.]