Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (orig. US milit.) snack foods, occas. cigarettes, money; underlying image of the use of such snacks as a lure by child-molesters.

1919		Lima (OH) News 5 June 6/3: ‘Poggy bait’ is the pet name for candy.
1920		Trenton Eve. Times (NJ) 30 Apr. 4/3: Some Navy Slang [...] ‘Poggy bait’ is the pet name for candy or sweets.
1935		A.J. Pollock Und. Speaks n.p.: Pogey bait, candy.
1950		Goldin et al. DAUL 161/1: Pogle-bait. (Scattered prisons) Candy or other small luxuries offered as inducement to degenerates.
1958		(con. 1950) E. Frankel Band of Brothers 39: He felt in his pocket and brought out two pieces of hard candy. ‘Pogie bait?’.
1964		Current Sl. (1967) I:4 4/2: Pogy bait, n. Snack foods.
1965		Guild Dict. Homosexual Terms 36: pogey (or pogie) bait is candy (or any other inducement) given to a young pogue as a lure by a pedicator.
1972		B. Rodgers Queens’ Vernacular 156: He offers to suck cock or proffers an upturned fanny in exchange for [...] pogue bait (fr pogue = young rooster who gets his tail feathers plucked in prison // Parlyaree pogey // It poco = little thing, bit: the terms include all digestible items used to entice, but also extended to cigarettes and money sometimes).
1979		(con. c.1970) G. Hasford Short Timers (1985) 42: We buy junk food; pogey bait.
1984		LaBarge & Holt Sweetwater Gunslinger 201 (1990) 237: Pogey Bait – candy, gum etc.

2. attrib. use of sense 1, inferior, weak.

1959

(con. WWII) B. Cochrell Barren Beaches of Hell 41: ‘Got in a knife fight with a couple of pogey-bait Sixths.’ [...] ‘What’s the pogey-bait Sixth?’ Leeper asked. ‘Sixth Marines. No-good outfit.’.