I havent had one hit me, but a few months back I had one aggressively charging the kayak, then breaking away for about 20 minutes.
I was heading back in, about 0.5 miles from the reserve when this aggressive sea lion just started charging and then breaking away. Started off thinking it was just messing with me, but after 5 minutes of it constantly doing this I was a bit more worried. It was getting closer and closer with each approach, to the point where it was inches away from making contact. It was also jumping out of the water repeatedly throughout the interaction.
Weird thing was I didn't have any fish, or bait on-board.... I tried everything I could think of.... zig zag pattern, stopping completely, going full speed... nothing stopped it from being a major
...
I could not for the life of me think of why it was doing it.....
Also, I have seen sea lions jumping erratically many times (trust me I was praying to see a shark nail it, that would make my life complete!), and I have thought about the possibility a shark is around. I usually stick around to watch and 9 times out of 10 there is another sea lion it is messing around with. My guess is they are practicing for the real thing...