The sea has always provided a valuable source of food for the people of the Emirates. Fish traps could be of the fixed, hadra type by which fish were guided along a stake-fence and finally into a small enclosure where they were harvested at low-tide; or else small moveable garghour traps woven from palm fronds, weighted down by stones, and baited to entice fish to enter through a narrow hole. In addition to fish, turtles and dugongs also provided valuable protein. The latter were caught by stalking them through the shallows, generally from a canoe, and eventually diving in after them and literally grappling with them. Turtle eggs were collected from well known nesting beaches and most parts of the animal were utilised.

The territory, which had over time become the exclusive dar of the Bani Yas tribes, is bordered by 600 km of coast. As can be expected, the inhabitants of the hinterland made every possible use of the resources which this area of beaches, sand banks, creeks and inshore islands offered. They also colonized the many more distant islands. The extensive tidal shallows, which are characteristic of most of this coast, are ideal for fishing with traps. These were intricately constructed fences, placed to shape a letter V, where the fish were caught when the water receded. Another method involved stretching two nets at right angles to the tidal creek from a central pole; the use of a small dugout and working in a team of two or three fishermen was essential in some locations. But there were also methods by which one man alone could secure a good catch as, for instance, by stalking a shoal of small fish in the shallow water and casting over it a circular net weighted with stones. Fish which was not consumed fresh was hung up in the sun to dry, or treated with salt, and taken to the inland settlements where this additional protein was very welcome. Some of the small fish was dried and used as camel fodder or as fertilizer for the gardens, but, as for the fresh fish, the fishermen on the coast of Abu Dhabi were a long way from markets. There is archaeological evidence that on most of Abu Dhabi's numerous islands, tribes people came to fish in the winter and even brought their camels over in boats. They used rainwater, stored in cisterns, or caught in horizontally placed sails. But the coast between Dubai and Khaur al-Odaid, at the foot of the Qatar Peninsula, was not suitable for the establishment of larger, permanent settlements, because of the lack of reliable supplies of drinking water.

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