This work examines the effect on catalysis of perturbing the position of bound CO2 in the active site of human carbonic anhydrase II (HCA II). Variants of HCA II replacing Val143 with hydrophobic residues, Ile, Leu, and Ala, were examined. The efficiency of catalysis in the hydration of CO2 for these variants was characterized by 18O exchange mass spectrometry, and their structures determined by X-ray crystallography at 1.7 to 1.5 Å resolution. The most hydrophobic substitutions V143I and V143L showed decreases in catalysis, as much as 20-fold, while the replacement by the smaller V143A showed only a moderate two-fold decrease in activity. Structural data for all three variants show no significant change in overall position of amino-acid side chains in the active site compared with wild type. However, V143A HCA II showed additional ordered water molecules in the active site compared to wild type. To further investigate the decrease in catalytic efficiency of V143I HCA II, an X-ray crystallographic CO2 entrapment experiment was performed to 0.93 Å resolution. This structure revealed an unexpected shift of the CO2 substrate towards the zinc bound solvent, placing it ~0.3 Ǻ closer than previously observed in wild type in conjunction with the observed dual occupancy of the product bicarbonate, presumably formed during the data acquisition. These data suggest that the Ile substitution at position 143 reduced catalytic efficiency is likely due to steric crowding resulting in destabilization of the transition state for conversion of CO2 into bicarbonate and a decreased product dissociation rate.